Here’s something from the UK press from back in April…

“There are plans for water sharing across neighbouring utilities and warnings of standpipes if the dry weather continues. The cracked ground of a parched riverbed, queues of sunburnt women waiting in the streets for water, wildfires raging across moorland – many will remember the drought of 1976 and the arid climate of Britain’s long hot summer. With the current drought covering huge swaths of the country, are similar conditions in store if it continues into 2013?

According to Professor Phil Haygarth of Lancaster University, our lakes and rivers could become toxic as they dry out, and freshwater swimming may be off limits. “If river flows lessen in the spring and summer time there is a tendency for what’s called algal blooms – toxic algae that grow in rivers and in lakes,” he says.”
The Guardian, 16 April 2012.

And here’s something from the UK media in July 2012….

“Britain has endured the wettest start to a summer for more than a century with up to 17 inches of rain falling in some places and forecasts that the miserable conditions will continue into next month. Thousands of properties have been flooded with insurers estimating the cost of repairs at hundreds of millions of pounds. ”                                        – Daily Telegraph, 11 July 2012.

This is a classic example of simplistic extrapolation, and the reason why most predictions are wrong, but is something else going on here? I’d say yes. The media, especially in the UK, loves sensation and fear. They think it sells newspapers and drives high ratings. But I think we need some realism in such reporting and most of all we need an appreciation of history and the longer-term context.