This is has already been a record breaking month for rainfall in some parts of the UK, with exceptional amounts of rain falling onto already saturated ground.
The very wet Boxing Day in parts of north Wales and northwest England was well forecast five days in advance with Amber, be prepared, warnings in force from as early as last Wednesday.
In the event the highest rainfall amounts were around 100mm with peaks of 130mm in Lancashire and in excess of 200mm in Snowdonia and caused high impacts across parts of north Wales and northern England.
Map showing two day rainfall totals for Christmas Day and Boxing Day
Here is a selection of the highest two day rainfall totals from Met Office observing sites for Christmas Day and Boxing Day:
| 48hr UK RAINFALL TOTALS 9am 25 DEC – 9am 27 DEC 2015 | |||
| SITE | AREA | RAINFALL TOTAL (MM) | |
| CAPEL CURIG | GWYNEDD | 210.6 | |
| STONYHURST | LANCASHIRE | 100 | |
| PATELEY BRIDGE, RAVENS NEST | NORTH YORKSHIRE | 97 | |
| BINGLEY | WEST YORKSHIRE | 93.6 | |
| BAINBRIDGE | NORTH YORKSHIRE | 89.8 | |
| BALA | GWYNEDD | 89.4 | |
| SHAP | CUMBRIA | 86.4 | |
| SPADEADAM | CUMBRIA | 79.4 | |
| PRESTON, MOOR PARK | LANCASHIRE | 73.2 | |
| MYERSCOUGH | LANCASHIRE | 72.4 | |
| BRADFORD | WEST YORKSHIRE | 69.4 | |
| ROCHDALE | GREATER MANCHESTER | 68.2 | |
| MORECAMBE | LANCASHIRE | 65.8 | |
| MONA | ISLE OF ANGLESEY | 63.6 | |
| KIELDER CASTLE | NORTHUMBERLAND | 61.2 | |
| DISHFORTH AIRFIELD | NORTH YORKSHIRE | 60.8 | |
This wet spell has added to the heavy rainfall through the rest of the month to make December 2015 already the wettest on record in parts of the UK.
Here is a small selection of new December records from Met Office observing stations around the UK 9am 1 – 9am 28 December 2015:
| Site | Total (mm) | 81-10 avg (mm) | Previous record |
| Shap (Cumbria) | 773.2 | 215.6 | 504.4mm in 2006 |
| Keswick (Cumbria) | 517.6 | 173 | 376.4mm in 2013 |
| Warcop Range (Cumbria) | 281.6 | 94.1 | 218.4mm in 2006 |
| Stonyhurst (Lancashire) | 331.4 | 141.6 | 319.3mm in 1951 |
| Morecambe (Lancashire) | 281.4 | 109.2 | 272mm in 1909 |
| Bainbridge (North Yorkshire) | 496.2 | 156.5 | 327.2mm in 2006 |
| Bingley
(West Yorkshire) |
241.4 | 114.3 | 247.2mm in 2006 |
| Eskdalemuir (Dumfries and Galloway) | 500 | 184.9 | 390.4mm in 2014 |
| Glasgow Bishopton | 311.4 | 145.6 | 294.8mm in 2006 |
| Capel Curig (Conwy) | 1012.2 | 308.9 | 612.8mm in 2006 |
This very unsettled and occasionally stormy spell was well signalled in our recent three month outlooks and is not unusual for this time of year, indeed this is when climatologically we would expect to have most of our storms.
Throughout this unsettled spell Met Office meteorologists and advisors are working round the clock with our partners to keep everyone up to date with the latest forecast information so they can plan and prepare for the expected weather.
Official blog of the Met Office news team
These rainfall ‘records’ are meaningless when many of the rainfall gauges have only been installed in the last few years. There’s no way of knowing when these rainfall levels were last experienced.
I would’ve thought that since each record breaking station has an 81-10 average figure against it then they have all been in place since 81 at least. I agree though that the report would be enhanced if the record length for each station was given. Perhaps in the absence of this you could point us to the location of the evidence in support of your claim that they’ve only been in a few years.
Hi GS. I believe that JB is referring to the relevance of current precipitation records within the frame that these things are ‘man made’ by climate science and media coverage implication. This implication being that these things are ‘unprecedented’ and ‘only of recent times’ and ‘due to man’s activities’. These are all incorrect assumptions based upon poor scientific methodology and short baselines.
Whilst my sympathy goes out to those who find themselves flooded or at risk at this time, I find it impossible to believe that these areas have never experienced such conditions before.
Generally the global precipitation patterns trend with the phase relationship between the Pacific and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillations which show a strong periodicity of around 60years. More significant is the natural, longer term trending of global temperatures which varies over a cycle length close to 1000years. So one could argue that the last, similar period to this, would have been with largely positive Pacific and Atlantic temperature anomalies around 900 to 1000AD whilst global temperatures trended towards the Medieval Warm Period plateau.
I don’t believe we had many weather stations in the UK gathering precipitation data back then.
One could add to that that the majority of work on the Medieval Warm Period show it to be warmer than current conditions. Before that time we had the warmer Roman Warm and the yet warmer still Minoan Warm periods. These other periods ‘must’ have had greater precipitation potential based upon temperature and resultant absolute humidity.
If we go back around 115,000years to the Eemian interglacial when hippo’s prevailed in Europe including living in and around the Thames in England and boreal forests grew where tundra on the Northern continents exists now, again one could argue that the precipitation potential then must have been greater than now.
The onset of a natural cooling signal imposed upon warm ocean temperatures will yield precipitation far in excess of these recent times. The worst is yet to come and, more significantly, it has nothing to do with the long wave radiative properties of ‘greenhouse gases’ as is popularly believed and preached to the public.
You summarised my position in relation to rain gauges entirely. I don’t disagree with anything in your comment, but there is one curious and somewhat inconvenient fact which has emerged from the paleo flood records. It appears the greatest flooding, and by implication the greatest extreme rainfall events, occurred during the 1600 – 1700 time period during the LIA cooling.
It all a bit inconvenient for the global warming alarmists.
Ah good the autodiadactic climate scientest are here again, lets relax and do nothing
Thanks for the kindly worded reply Mike.
Unfortunately you cannot even blame ‘autocorrect’ for producing a word that doesn’t exist. Perhaps you should have ‘taught yourself’ how to spell!
BTW, I didn’t suggest at all that we should do nothing Mike, I merely pointed out that barking up the ‘wrong tree’ is a pointless exercise.