Wettest Year For England Ever!

A recent announcement from the Met Office has declared 2012 as the wettest year for England since recrords began and the 2nd wettest for the entire UK. As such we will take a closer look at how that has affected Oak Park Golf Club on a local level.

Below are two charts detailing rainfall statistics at Oak Park. Table 1 is the average over the previous 30 years and table 2 refers to the rainfall levels for 2012.

table 1                               table 2

Jan	61.8
Feb	45.4
Mar	44.1
Apr	47.1
May	51.3
Jun	44.4
July	46.3
Aug	52.8
Sept	54.4
Oct	77.8
Nov	67.9
Dec	63.4
year	656.6

Jan	37
Feb	16
Mar	27
Apr	122
May	28
Jun	132
July	86
Aug	61
Sept	57
Oct	95
Nov	106
Dec	93
year	861

The first quarter for 2012 was far drier than average and as such we experienced a busy period. Hopes were high that 2012 was going to be a great year for golf locally. Due to this dry spell groundwater levels were extremely low and this prompted the authorities to implement the hose pipe ban.

However, April gave us something completely different. It was the wettest month locally since records began closely followed by the same in June. To top this all off, the other Summer months were also above average too, and as such, we ended up having the wettest Summer on record.

This has led us into the Winter with an already very high groundwater level and, coupled with the continued high rainfall levels, has caused us to implement the recent trolley bans to protect the courses for the longer term. Not only that but it has meant certain machinery cannot go out onto the course and in addition certain projects are thus put on hold in order to protect the courses further.