There will be many members who remember the summer of ’85, which was so bad (particularly in September) that the club competition finals had to be played at Milngavie GC.

So, in order to give some sort of perspective to how the course has held up this year, here are the statistics for rainfall from January to end of September for both years.

* These are Met Office statistics, from their facility at Glasgow Airport/Paisley.   Drew McKechnie has “actual” DP figures for this year, which will be updated before the end of Oct 2012.

Last 2 figures on each line are Rainfall in mm. and then Sun Hours.

1985 *

1985 1 3.8 -1.2 21 53.0 49.4
1985 2 6.2 0.2 11 31.3 69.3
1985 3 8.0 1.7 8 81.3 115.3
1985 4 11.9 4.7 0 61.5 120.9
1985 5 15.3 7.3 0 56.1 157.7
1985 6 16.6 8.9 0 69.5 166.3
1985 7 18.0 11.8 0 165.0 94.2
1985 8 16.8 10.7 0 185.7 110.7
1985 9 15.3 9.8 0 288.2 75.3

2012 *

2012 1 7.3* 2.1* 10* 140.4* 49.9*
2012 2 8.2* 3.1* 7* 62.9* 49.1*
2012 3 12.6* 5.1* 2* 43.8* 145.0* Provisional
2012 4 11.5* 3.2* 4* 61.0* 138.0* Provisional
2012 5 15.9* 6.6* 1* 55.7* 227.6* Provisional
2012 6 16.5* 9.6* 0* 130.0* 123.2* Provisional
2012 7 18.2* 11.2* 0* 127.7* 129.8* Provisional
2012 8 19.7* 11.8* 0* 126.7* 178.0* Provisional
2012 9 15.2* 9.2* 0* 99.0* 130.8* Provisional

From these figures you will note that this summer (June/July/August) had 385 mm of rainfall in comparison with 1985’s mid-summer total of 421 mm.  (ie. very similar)

However, the September rainfall in 1985 of 288.2 was virtually 3 times that of this year’s September figure of 99 mm., hence the washout of the competition finals that year.

So once again, we should be thankful for small mercies and grateful for the hard work put in by the Greenkeeping staff who have ensured that whenever possible we’ve had a course which has been playable.

+++++

* Drew McKechnie takes his own readings locally and he advises that our rainfall figures for this summer, June/July/August/September are higher than those at GLA.