England & Wales Rainfall Trends

From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

By Paul Homewood

It does not need me to tell you that it was quite wet last year. It was in fact ninth wettest in England & Wales since 1766, though nowhere near the two wettest years in 1872 and 1768.

For the last decade or so, we have been going through the same sort of weather as in the 1870s and 80s, as well as the 1920s.

But averages and trends are not particularly meaningful – nature does not do averages and straight lines! You could have ten years all with the same rainfall, or you could have five years with high rainfall and five years of drought, and you could get the same average.

If you just look at the distribution of wet years, there is no obvious pattern:

But the chart of driest years strongly suggests that these are both much less frequent and severe now. The most recent inclusion in the list is 2011:

It would be accurate to say that England & Wales are not getting wetter, but are not as dry as they often used to be.

Despite the year as a whole being wetter than average, no month was particularly so, with none appearing in the list of >170mm:

The wettest day was Feb 8th, with 21.89mm. Most years see this sort of level or more.

The data shows that rainfall is not getting more extreme in England & Wales.