One of the great joys of the English summer, the sight and smell of parched brown grass, arrived in London about a week or so ago.

With warm dry conditions on the way for the next week how far will it spread, how intense will it get, and how long will it last? 

In this neck of the woods the return periods for different stages of browning (we could call it the BGI - brown grass index) are along the following lines:

1. Some parching on low-cut lawns and parks, but green elsewhere: 3 years out of 4


2. General browning on all sunny spots where grass is cut: 1 in 2 years


3. Pure yellow parks and gardens, browning in uncut / grazing land, newly planted trees suffering: once every 5 years or more (e.g. Aug 2003, July 2005, July 2010, only barely in July 2006)


4. Stinging nettles die back, sensitive trees - birch, hawthorn etc - start to turn colour and lose leaves: roughly once a decade (1976, 1984, 1995, 2003, nothing since)


5. Mass tree leaf fall: in my lifetime only August 1995 and 2003.

In South East London at present we are on the cusp between BGI 1 and 2.

Certainly having that parched look here at Folkestone now. But, as already been said, it isn't that unusual especially what with the sea air as this end. However, last summer and the summer before that were generally green and lush thanks to regular bouts of rainfalls but not quite the case so far this season with my lawn and council grass verges looking a bit thirsty. It does go to show how we don't need high temperatures to cause that, just generally below average rainfall for a few weeks, although we kept having that drying north east wind in Spring which I'm sure didn't help much.

The verges on M20 motorway in Kent the M26, M25 south and M23 are all developing that browny, yellow parched look at the moment. Signs of true summer developing.

Up at this end of Hampshire we have very sandy/gravelly soil (lots of gravel pits near me) which dries up incredibly quickly. We have brown grass just about every year, this year it was turning by the middle of May. I think 2007 is the only one I can recall where it stayed green most of the time.

Agree with this, and also not so different from where I used to live in mid-Kent

Currently still looking pretty green down here, though grass which has recently been cut short is not regenerating as green shoots, but tending to stay brownish.

I remember 1990, flying back from a holiday in a very green Norway, to see a dramatic difference in the parks and playing fields on the approach to Heathrow

2003 had regular thunderstorms here (up to August when it did turn very dry) so wasn't too bad for "brown grass" 1995 was the "King" of the Brown grass summers here...

It looked extraordinary by the end of that Summer.

What's amazing is how quickly it bounces back though. I remember the wet September of 1995 transformed everything within a couple of weeks.

Agreed Gavin.

1995 was the king of the brown. By the third week in August the scenes were incredible.

And I'm all more glad of the sandy heathland to the north of me. 😊

I do enjoy visiting the heaths of the Surrey/ Hampshire borders for a spot of Billberry picking 😉

Dartmoor not at 1 yet, around SE Devon 1-2. Mid August 1976 was at least 5.

1976 was the daddy, BIG Daddy.

I wasn't alive in 1976. 😞 Heck, I was only 8 in 1995.

You need to sit back with a beer or two, and trawl through 20 June -29 August 1976 for both SLP and 850s on kartenarchive.  The period 25 June - July 4 saw 32c exceeded daily!!  Think about it.  Nothing like it since.  If were really really really lucky we mike get a pale imitation this year.

I saw this today on my Facebook of an accident today, it's a shot of the motorway in & out of the city... You can see the wild grasses & weeds dying of along the road verge already.

It certainly was! I was 18 and spent 2 memorable weeks in a hot Lake District camping....could only sleep in the tent for a few hours....far too hot! The whole landscape was brown and dusty there...never seen it like that since. As for my home city of Leeds there was no green to be seen.....West Yorkshire was barren.

Brown grass index is actually a thing?! 

I think this deserves a place in my top 2 most bizarre indexed lists of all time. Its a very close call between this and the bristol stool scale.

Really interesting thread though, up north (and given I haven't been alive for all that long) I haven't noticed anything particularly noteworthy on this scale, probably barely a 3.

we need to extend the scale backwards:

0. Grass beautifully green, dry to the touch and easy to mow. Can be sat on without wet or stained trousers.

-1. Grass lush and damp to the touch, but cuttable. Soil moist. Slight dampness to trousers.

-2. Grass too wet to cut. Soil sticky. Skidding and damage when sport played

-3. Ground a quagmire. Possibly some standing water. Grass distressed in trodden areas.

Most gardeners long for BGI zero but it is a particularly rare beast in Britain.

-4 Ground a sea of ankle deep mud. Not a blade of grass to be seen. Usually only observed at Glastonbury.

Certainly BGI 2 here, will be 3 soon. Grass has stopped growing more or less. Courgettes doing well though (with some added water!)