Guardian: Damian Carrington Environment editor ‘A year of unusually dry weather means parts of England are facing summer drought with groundwater and some reservoirs well below normal. A year of dry weather, only slightly alleviated by recent storms, has left much of south-east England facing drought this summer. Groundwater and some reservoir levels are well below normal and only above-average rainfall in the next three months will refill them, officials warned on Friday. One water company, Southern Water, has applied for a drought permit to allow them to take more water than normally allowed from the River Medway in Kent, to try to avoid water restrictions for households in the summer. Last winter was unusually dry, with 25% less rain than normal, as was last spring. Summer rains are nearly all taken up by trees and plants and autumn was particularly dry in the south-east, with 63% less rain than usual in October and 34% less in November. This has left almost half of groundwater monitoring sites across the south and east of England “exceptionally” or “notably” low. The water companies facing the greatest risk of drought are all in the south-east: Southern Water, Affinity Water and Sutton and East Surrey Water.’ Click here to read more