Met Office: Wettest Winter in Wales since records began

Provisional rainfall figures (from 1 December 2013 to 25 February 2014) confirm the UK has had its wettest winter since the national series records began in 1910.

New records have been set for Wales and the rest of the UK, with southeast and central southern England having seen well over double the rainfall expected in a normal winter.

Current record wettest winters on national records going back to 1910

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It has also been the wettest winter in the long running  England and Wales Precipitation(EWP) series going back to 1766, with 435 mm of rain being recorded up to 24th February. This beats the previous record of 423 mm set in 1915.

The main reason for the mild and wet winter weather is that we have seen a predominance of west and south-west winds, bringing in mild air from the Atlantic – as well as the unsettled and at times stormy conditions.

So, not surprisingly the whole of the UK is on target for a warmer than average winter – typically by around 1.5 °C.

The UK average mean temperature for the winter so far is 5.2 °C making it the 5th warmest winter since the national series records began in 1910. It is the warmest since 2007 which was 5.6 °C and the record was set in 1989, which averaged 5.8 °C.

Sunshine has varied markedly across the country. Despite being so wet, south England has seen 12% more sunshine than average, while Scotland has only seen 78% of its average sunshine hours.

Rainfall Amount

Sunshine Duration