The Climate at Goldhanger and around the Blackwater The climate on the Essex costal region and particularly around the Blackwater Estuary is notably different to the majority of the UK and even other parts of Essex... o The effects of being on the east coast o Influences of being close to a large estuary o Recent effects of climate change The effects of being on the east coast The most significant meteorological phenomenon is known as the rain shadow effect...
Extensive national and regional data is available from the UK Met.Office showing the history and variations in climate across the UK over many years, and this data has been interpreted here to demonstrate its significance for this coastal region...
rainfall levels
sunshine levels
These maps reveal that the immediate vicinity of the Blackwater has the combination of both very low rainfall and high levels of sunshine, comparable to the south coast. The two driest places in the UK are recorded as St Osyth and Shoeburyness, both on the Essex coast. The two driest gardens in the UK open to the public are Beth Chatto's Garden at Elmstead Market and RHS Hyde Hall, again both in Essex. The total annual rainfall recorded near Goldhanger in 2013 was 51.7cm. Here are some average annual rainfalls in centimetres from the Met. Office website as a comparison:
	St Osyth Shoeburynes Chelmsford		50.7 51.5 59.1		Colchester Oxford Cardiff		60   65 115.2
National and regional weather forecasters sometimes say “...and it will be drier on the east coast", but more often say “...and it will be cooler on the east coast". However, the average temperature maps available and summarised below show that both the summer and winter temperatures along our part of the Essex coast are not significantly different to those along the south coast. So perhaps they should be saying “...and an easterly wind-chill effect will make it seem cooler on the east coast”. With increased “global warming” a cooler east coast on hot summer days maybe no bad thing!
average summer temperatures				average winter temperatures
An additional and very noticeable effect on the east coast is the frequent sunny mornings which are another consequence of the rain shadow effect. This diagram shows the what happens as the sun rises from the east and meets the clouds coming from the south-west at around midday... There is one further effect of being on low land in the east of the country... As the sun begins to set in the west it emerges from behind the clouds frequently covering most of the country to the west and there is often a short period of bright, colourful sunsets that illuminate tall exposed buildings, such as the Church Tower.
The Church tower at sunset		view from The Chequers Inn looking east across The Square and along Head St.
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Influences of being close to a large estuary Farmers and gardeners know that coastal areas benefit from the moderating effect of the warmer sea in winter months, which is another meteorological phenomena known as Maritime or Marine Influence, and large estuaries such as the Blackwater bring that effect further inland. The Blackwater Estuary is the largest estuary in Essex and one of the largest in the UK, being 14 miles long and about 3 miles wide at its mouth, and receives freshwater from the Blackwater and Chelmer rivers. Because eastern England is relatively dry however, the Estuary receives relatively little freshwater from these rivers and it is dominated by the large tidal sea water content.
The UK’s weather is heavily influenced by the oceans and the Gulf Stream that carries warm waters north from the Caribbean, and the temperature of the oceans changes very little compared with the land. The mean summer sea surface temperature reaches just 17 degrees C, while the mean winter sea surface temperature is no lower 5 degrees C. The winds that have blown across the sea onto the mainland influences the temperature of the immediate coastal regions and generally creates cooler summers and warmer winters. In addition, there is the temperature effect of different altitudes, giving a average reduction in ambient temperature of about 2 degrees centigrade for each 100 metres of elevation, making the low lying coastal region slightly warmer than just a few miles inland. As the prevailing winds in the summer months are from the south west and there are frequently easterly winds in the winter months, the weather of the north bank of the Estuary is strongly influenced by all of these effects: The cooling effect in the summer is enjoyed by holiday maker and locals who on very hot days, just like on the south coast, take advantage of using the south facing beaches for sunbathing and swimming in the fresh salty waters. The aroma of the sea together with the gentle sound of low waves brought in by a sea breeze is very special and is something not witnessed at riversides, lakes and swimming pools, and is evocative of holidays. There are other south facing beaches in Essex such as Southend, Cavey Island, Clacton and Felixstow, however they don’t have that same remoteness, tranquillity and historical associates. Conversely, the warming effect in the winter benefits agricultural crops located close to the estuary as they are less likely to suffer from frost damage or snow falls and tend start growing earlier in the season, a phenomena well known to local farmers and gardeners. Crops located near the estuary, such as the orchards once located all around Goldhanger (see... Charles Page's orchards in Church St) were less likely to suffer from frost damage. This was before the EU's Common Agricultural Policy(CAP) paid the local fruit growers in the 1970s to destroy the orchards on the theory that it was more efficient to grow soft fruits in southern Europe! However, the favourable climate still has significant benefits on products and features in the area, including... Salt extraction in the Blackwater at Longwick Farm by Maldon Crystal Salt Co. Oyster cultivation in the Blackwater and Fruitfields apple orchards Stanley Wilkin at Bounds Farm and Wilkin & Sons - products North Maldon Growers and Beekeeping at Goldhanger Estuary leisure activities and local holiday parks ___________________________________ The recent effects of climate change In recent years there have been two surprising beneficial effects of climate change in the Essex coastal region... 1 There have been very few if any hosepipe bans during recent summer droughts compared with other parts of the UK The explanation for this goes back to the mid 1900s when the local water companies realised that the growing population in the region needed more fresh water, however the average rainfall was, and still is, the lowest in the UK, with few large rivers to maintain the supply in summer time. The solution was to build new very large reservoirs. Today the privatised Essex and Suffolk Water Company have inherited these five reservoirs which are wholly owned by them...
Hanningfield Abberton Ardleigh Alton Water Trinity Broads
These huge reservoirs are continuously filled by both the local rivers, and significantly by deep aquifer wells in the dry months. They clearly still providing a more than adequate supply to Essex customers. One might ask therefore why does this Company not supply other water companies in the south with some of this abundant resource? (for example Wikipedia tells us that Abberton reservoir holds 41,000 mega-litres of fresh water) The answer is most likely to be associated with the way all the water companies were privatised which created local monopolies (unlike electricity and gas) and their need to make large profits. E & S Water Co. could well sell water to other the companies, but why would another water company pay for more water when they can simply impose hosepipe bans on customers at little or no cost to the company? Also the companies would have to pay for new distribution pipes.
2 Compared with other parts of the UK there have been almost no recorded sewage leaks into rivers and sea in this region. here are four maps that demonstrate the differences compared to other parts of the UK...
UK wide rivers sewage pollution ...in the South East UK coastal sewage polution ...in the South East
a Rivers Trust interactive map two Surfers Against Sewage interactive maps at... https://theriverstrust.org/sewage-map at... www.sas.org.uk/water-quality/sewage-pollution-alerts The explanation for this second phenomenon and its local benefits is associated with the geography of the region, as described at the top of this page, resulting in a notably different climate, now unmistakably being enhanced by global warming changes. There is a very obvious coloration between the Rivers Trust’s UK wide rivers-sewage pollution map above and the MET office annual rainfall map shown near the top of the page (and here ) and water quality alerts on the eastern side of the country are apparently much less common. At first site one might think that low rainfall would result in less clean water entering rivers, so there would be proportionally more pollution, but this does take account of the actions of water companies in western parts of the UK where they increasingly suffer short periods of very heavy rain and local flooding that results in ancient water treatment plants being unable to cope and have to dump unprocessed material into rivers and the sea. Apparently this is within current government regulations as water companies are permitted to release untreated sewage into rivers and the sea to prevent "waste" backing up in streets and homes. so in comparison with other parts of the UK we have two water supplier benefits not enjoyed elsewhere last updated in April 2025
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