The State Of The Ground.

[watsonjm]

4 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

They're right though! You 2014 newbies wouldn't understand, when it's continually chucking it down, you still get the mud, but it's also fucking raining on you.  Admittedly, some people who did 2007 and 2016 preferred 2007 because at least it wasn't muddy from the first day, but generally speaking, it's the worse year.

I think you've been pretty lucky for rain so far, with 2014 probably being the wettest overhead since that year. 2016 was bad, but it really could (and has) been worse.

2007 was grim, my first year and i nearly didn't come back (thank god i did).  Preferred 2016, i can deal with mud, the depressing virtually none stop rain of 2007 was harder for me.

 

Am i right in thinking 2005 was the worst of the worst?

[mpdow2]

26 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Yeah, the weather in Somerset is pretty wet today but the ground needs it, it's like rock. Definitely feels like it's been cooler than usual this Spring but rainfall levels must have been below average. I don't want it to get too hot and sunny yet, it always seems like a sustained period of heat in this country ends in humid and thundery conditions, just what we don't want in three weeks time. So let's hope for reasonably low temperatures and unsettled conditions for the next two weeks as forecast, just in time for a beautiful wave of high pressure from the Monday before gates open taking us all the way through the week of the festival. Beleavis.

 

And btw, weather in 2016 sucked. There's not one redeeming aspect of trawling through six inches of mud for five days. Not one. 

well the fact it didn't rain besides a few minor showers was good. Mud sucks but at least I didn't get wet

[Fork_UK]

2 hours ago, Yokel Again said:

Don't panic until the weekend before I reckon. 

We said that in 2016.  In fact, this thread is beginning to read like a repeat on Dave.  

If I remember also, in 2016, we had videos of people literally bouncing on the ground with water trapped under the turf, like a waterbed.

I think I'll be pretty gutted if we have another year like that.  I don't mind the mud itself, but it just makes it so much work to move and with nowhere to sit, it's such a massive slog.  

[Dr Glasto]

1 minute ago, Charm said:

It was fine, I’m always comparing to 07 which was so grim, mud over rain any time. 

Charm x

Yeah that year is always my benchmark for bad weather now. 

[clarkete]

Top poncho action @H.M.V

I quite favour sitting on a little stool wearing it to try and create an insulated cocoon, but as you suggest some years the elements will simply wear you down.

[Dr Glasto]

Just now, watsonjm said:

2007 was grim, my first year and i nearly didn't come back (thank god i did).  Preferred 2016, i can deal with mud, the depressing virtually none stop rain of 2007 was harder for me.

 

Am i right in thinking 2005 was the worst of the worst?

2005 was the worst in terms of the amount of rain falling all at once (massive thunderstorm on I think the Thursday or Friday morning), but it very much depended where you were camped as to how much if affected you. If you were at the bottom of Pennards it was bad times!!  It was glorious sunshine most of the festival though. 

[incident]

9 minutes ago, Dr Glasto said:

Yeah this was the state of the ground on the first day in 2007

It definitely wasn't - unless you mean Friday as first day maybe. Wednesday in 2007 was glorious, ground was perfectly dry everywhere.

Just a shame it started pissing it down on Thursday and rarely stopped.

[H.M.V]

7 minutes ago, Charm said:

It was fine, I’m always comparing to 07 which was so grim, mud over rain any time. 

Charm x

I can't even begin to think about 2007 and that kind of weather. Gives me the heebie jeebies. 

But still the glud was awful. Couldn't move around without massive effort. 

[Dr Glasto]

Just now, incident said:

It definitely wasn't - unless you mean Friday as first day maybe. Wednesday in 2007 was glorious, ground was perfectly dry everywhere.

Just a shame it started pissing it down on Thursday and rarely stopped.

Ah yeah we got there on the Thursday - this was taken at the Brother's bar as a sort of 'look, Glastonbury mud!' type thing. 

[jonnyisRFC]

Give me constant mud with no rain over constant rain any day! 

All the rain this week is a good thing anyway, we’re using all of June’s rain up before the festival starts! 

[stuartbert two hats]

I mean, 2016 was terrible mud. The worst mud.

[FloorFiller]

The rising post count of no other thread gives me the fear like this one. It’s never good news.

Here’s hoping it isn’t a complete mudbath. A lot of the people who I went with in 2016 and gave it a miss in 2017 are returning this year so I can only imagine how pissed off they’d be with any kind of 2016 repeat. And me too. Want those ‘sit anywhere, any time’ ground conditions.

[DareToDibble]

The mud in 2016 was horrible, there’s no doubt. I remember trying to get into SE Corner and it was taking ages as people were losing boots and wellies all over the place. It was like glue.

I took a spare poncho in order to be able to sit down on the floor though so that part wasn’t too bad.

Realistically any forecasts for the week of the festival aren’t going to be that accurate yet. But if rain for 5-7 days now followed by dry weather will be perfect. KEEP THE FAITH!

[Harry49]

Currently at a PTSD conference, judging by this thread it sounds like those of you at 07 and 16 need to seek clinical help. The symptoms being shown here are definitely clinically significant ??

[bombfrog]

2004, my first year, I remember coming away from it thinking we'd done a mud year because it rained Saturday night and Sunday turning some fields to mud. Little did I know how just how easy that year was. Nothing could have prepared us for....

2005 - horrendous, I woke up in pennards to find a river running past our tent and the porterloos floating in a lake near the railway track. I remember having to give my mate a piggyback across the river as he didn't have wellies.

2007 was the worst, just relentless low-medium level rain the whole festival. Just when you thought it might have stopped and you took your poncho off it started again, every time. Even as we packed our tents up and trundled back to the car it was pissing down and our trolley buckled in the mud a few fields from the car.

2016, I genuinely had to look it up when somebody said it was a rain year. I remember waking up in our hotel near Bristol on the Wednesday morning and realising it had rained all night and we were going to have to queue and pitch tents in the rain. Not good but after that I don't actually remember it being that bad a year, certainly nothing like the previous ones.

Edited June 7, 2019 by bombfrog

[Mezhyp1]

2 minutes ago, DareToDibble said:

The mud in 2016 was horrible, there’s no doubt. I remember trying to get into SE Corner and it was taking ages as people were losing boots and wellies all over the place. It was like glue.

I took a spare poncho in order to be able to sit down on the floor though so that part wasn’t too bad.

Realistically any forecasts for the week of the festival aren’t going to be that accurate yet. But if rain for 5-7 days now followed by dry weather will be perfect. KEEP THE FAITH!

That entrance to the SE Corner in 2016 was absolutely manic 

[Doug85]

Anyone been on site or near by to see what the rain today has done to the ground? Doesn't seem to be as heavy rain there now but there is a threat of a thunderstorm this evening according to the MET. 

Rest of the week doesn't look too bad really other than Wednesday. 

[TiZuff]

Why has this thread sky rocketed ?!? What have I missed ?? Why are we talking about 07/16 I thought the water table was low and the ground could take the rain ???

[H.M.V]

Just now, TiZuff said:

Why has this thread sky rocketed ?!? What have I missed ?? Why are we talking about 07/16 I thought the water table was low and the ground could take the rain ???

Because its getting tantalisingly close now and it's all to play for. 

[stuartbert two hats]

22 minutes ago, watsonjm said:

2007 was grim, my first year and i nearly didn't come back (thank god i did).  Preferred 2016, i can deal with mud, the depressing virtually none stop rain of 2007 was harder for me.

 

Am i right in thinking 2005 was the worst of the worst?

Not at all, unless your tent was flooded on the Friday morning. For the majority of the festival, it wasn't that bad at all. Sunday was lovely and you could pretty much sit down by Monday.

2007 was much, much worse. 2016 too.

[Henrik]

10 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I mean, 2016 was terrible mud. The worst mud.

It really was. It seemed to adopt a personality of it's own - one that mocked my every step. 

[stuie]

37 minutes ago, H.M.V said:

Just as a reminder of 2016. Fuck. That. Shit! 

It's great fun!  Love it.

[chazwwe]

2 minutes ago, TiZuff said:

Why has this thread sky rocketed ?!? What have I missed ?? Why are we talking about 07/16 I thought the water table was low and the ground could take the rain ???

Because rain has started appearing on weather forecasts leading up to the festival. The pattern is similar to 2016, lovely and warm up until a few weeks before hand and then rain. 

[BambooShanks]

8 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I mean, 2016 was terrible mud. The worst mud.

It's the way it stayed at that horrible welly sucking stage and every time it started to dry/firm up we'd get another shower putting the ground back to where it started.  

[Fork_UK]

3 minutes ago, TiZuff said:

Why has this thread sky rocketed ?!? What have I missed ?? Why are we talking about 07/16 I thought the water table was low and the ground could take the rain ???

I think it all started with this forecast:

https://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/England/Pilton~7292387/long.html