Worryingly Wet & Worryingly Sunless

[Eskimo]

Anyone got current precip stats for March? Got to be nearing or over the average for March especially for Southern UK?

Edited March 27 by Eskimo

[AndyTee]

Don't know about March individual figures, but the BBC forecaster last night stated that Plymouth had already had 667 mm this year (approx. 2/3 annual) and Dartmoor (generalised) approximately 3/4 of - I think - 1900 mm annual! 

[Downburst]

 AndyTee Well my nearest official station Dublin Airport is 106mm to March 26 which equals the March (54) and April (52) combined total at about 106 rounded. So wet it is and the month is not over. This time two weeks I will be in sunnier climes thank the maker, otherwise I think I might go raving mad.

[TwisterGirl81]

 Eskimo we are over our average already of 62mm, we are at 79mm for March so far in Exeter and I would be shocked if we don’t exceed 100mm for the month after several 100mm+ months , it really has been an incredibly wet autumn and winter, spring has started out on the same footing. 
I’m desperately hoping we will have warm, dry and sunny weather the second half of spring and all of summer and a warm dry sunny autumn to make up for this wet and dull weather we’ve had for several months, it’s needed.

[Arctic Hare]

 B87 We've had 19.9 °C in the UK this very January, and it was also the last time we had a reasonably dry and bright spell. I admit the trick of getting the two to coincide may be rather tougher...

[B87]

 Eskimo Heathrow currently at 73.4mm vs the average of 38.8mm. 

 Arctic Hare Not here we didn't. The warmest day in January here was only 13.7c.

[danm]

 Arctic Hare that was a crazy high temperature for Jan, but very localised due to the foehn effect. 

[WYorksWeather]

 Eskimo Here are the broad totals for the various regions so far. Starting with overall EWP, which is already above average for the entire month, and will rise further.

North West, North East, and Central England:

South West and South East England:

Scotland and Northern Ireland:

Note that the regions for these maps don't exactly map onto regions used for other purposes, e.g. Yorkshire doesn't have it's own region, and sits within the north-east. Here is a map of them:

Just for interest, the only sub-region that has been even slightly drier than average is Northern Scotland, though the overall Scotland average is wetter than average.

All in all, not a good March if it's dry weather you're looking for. It does show where the variation is though, at my location it's been on the poor side but not horrendous for rain. Terrible for the south-west of course.

[Scorcher]

55.8mm here so far so not that wet. It will probably end up above average but not by that much.

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! Indeed, I've noted the 47/74 thing before.

 

[Arctic Hare]

 danm Oh yeah, hence the smiley at the end of my post! Agreed it wasn't representative, though plenty of places got well past 15 °C that month.

Edited March 27 by Arctic Hare
typo

[Fen Wolf]

Been snowing in sw england overnight.  Social media shows even big cities like plymouth, exeter and large parts of devon and Cornwall got aboutba foot of laid snow last night!  

[B87]

Heathrow now at 80.4mm for the month, 207% of the March average. February had 238% of average rainfall too.

[Summer8906]

I've noticed a real pessimistic sense setting in of late, even amongst the more optimistic posters.

The first half of April is looking horrific, even worse than Feb and March if this is at all possible.

I am actually starting to get seriously alarmed about this spell now. To get 10 wet months in a row is unprecedented in modern times, and to get Feb,March and April (which ought to be the driest time of year) all with double normal rainfall (which looks feasible) on top of that is just frightening. We've had several season changes and nothing seems capable of breaking the locked-in pattern for long: best we could manage was 10 days in September and two weeks in January.

My weather memories stretch back to 1978 and I literally, without exaggeration, cannot remember anything like this. Summer 2007, Autumn 2000, Summer 2012 and the rest were all transient, lasting a few months at worst.

Looking for "measured" answers here (and I don't blame anyone for moaning!) does anyone think there is a realistic chance of a pattern change "of some kind" anytime soon? Not necessarily to warm and sunny, but just to something average for the time of year.

And I know I've asked this before but just in the past week or so there seems to have developed a real sense of fatalistic pessimism: is this likely to be the new norm for the UK? Has a combination of excessively warm seas and a northerly latitude condemned us to a hellishly wet and dull climate?

I'd now say it's looking almost certain July 2023-June 2024 will be the wettest mid-year to mid-year on record, and I'd say there's an "evens" chance of spring being the wettest on record. If the second half of spring is even marginally wetter than normal I think there's a good chance of the record going.

 

Edited March 28 by Summer8906

[kold weather]

 Summer8906 You would have thought a rapid shift in the enso state combined with final warming of the pv is going to totally shift this pattern.

The fear I have is it just shift us into another pretty meh pattern. Rapidly intensifying la nina summers tend to be on the poorer end of the scale, especially in the North. The south at least has more riding chances typically.

As I said in the other thread, the 2nd half of 94 and first 3 months of 95 were pretty rough going yet that shifted gears into an exceptional summer.

So it absolutely can and does happen (and equally it can shift the other way from dry to wet)

With all that being said, yes this spell absolutely is in exceptional territory now. I think 1872 had every month above average? It was absurdly wet regardless. Also as wet as things are, it's not yet in the same ballpark as the first part of 2014.

Edited March 28 by kold weather

[Summer8906]

3 minutes ago, kold weather said:

With all that being said, yes this spell absolutely is in exceptional territory now. I think 1872 had every month above average? It was absurdly wet regardless. Also as wet as things are, it's not yet in the same ballpark as the first part of 2014.

The difference with 2014 though is it all took place over a much shorter period, basically around Dec 13 2013 - Feb 15 2014. March 2014 was mostly warm and sunny (even the second half of Feb was relatively benign), and much of the second half of 2013 (except Oct and Dec) was basically benign.

It's the longevity now combined with extremely wet weather for a dry time of year that is absolutely unprecedented in recent history.

Regarding 94/95, essentially the wet period was mid-Aug to end-Feb, so quite long, yes, but not comparable to the current spell.

Edited March 28 by Summer8906

[B87]

It's not just the rainfall either. December had 22 hours of sun, Feb 52 hours, March currently on 80 hours here. Exceptional rainfall and dullness combined.

[Buzz]

I'm sure that, should we we manage to go for maybe four weeks without rain in the coming months, the trashy media will be screaming 'drought!' and the hosepipe bans will commence, primarily in the south east at first .......

That's because despite all this rain the UK lacks enough reservoirs as well as a reliable, well maintained water distribution network. This is because the UK no longer owns most of its water distribution network, a lot has been taken over by foreign investors and other interested groups.

[LetItSnow!]

 kold weather The north poor/south ridgey type summer further fuels my feelings of a 1998 type summer Summer8906 Pretty sure it was generally quite wet albeit with normal interuptions from April 1993 to February 1995. 1993 was a very wet year with 1013mm and 1994 had 1050mm. Probably why, along with better infastructure, the extreme drought of summer 1995 wasn't a hazard like 1976 was.

Of course the biggest difference being at that time there was a stable cycle between drier couples of years and wetter ones whereas now the die is loaded in favour of wet...  just like in older, colder, times it was loaded to dry.

I really do think though this will let up soon... but soon could be second half of April or it could September; first week of September knowing the sardonic nature of the UK climate.

[richie3846]

 Buzz Also, the South East water region, and the Cotswolds area, have fast responding aquifers, which increases the risk of shorter term droughts. These areas are the first to dry up, but also the first to refill after rain.

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! I know what you mean about 1993-early 95 being wet in general. The difference as you said was there were normal interruptions. For example summer 1993 was fairly dry aside from a wet July (albeit cool and not especially sunny).

November 1993 was famously dry and cold.

In 1994 we were lucky that the two really dry months were June and July. Nov was also slightly on the dry side albeit dull and damp, IIRC.

So in terms of consecutive months, that gives us as the longest run Dec 1993-May 1994 (6). The literal lack of dry months at all in the past 9 is  quite astounding. Even before April starts, it now seems overwhelmingly probable that April will be a 10th, even if there is literally no rain at all in the final 2 weeks.

Furthermore the various wet spells of 1993-95 seemed to come with different synoptics whereas we seem to have been stuck with basically the same cyclonic SW-ly synoptic for the past 9 months.

Edited March 28 by Summer8906

[ANYWEATHER]

 Buzz don’t get me started about lack of water infrastructure due to many years of neglect. We have had enough rainfall to fill a reservoir the size of the Uk , there is simply no excuse…..

[Summer8906]

 Buzz I know what you mean but I don't think the "foreign" aspect is so relevant. It's mostly just good old British Thatcherism, I suspect, in which only shareholders matter, and everyone else (customers, employees) can go to hell.

Mrs T was after all the architect of the current UK water "industry".

 

Edited March 28 by Summer8906

[raz.org.rain]

25 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

 I know what you mean about 1993-early 95 being wet in general

Funnily enough 1995 was coming up as an analogue quite a lot.

[Weather-history]

July 2023-June 2024 total for the EWP is going to be something if this keeps up.

If an annual total was to record  the same as the current July 2023-to now total, it would put that year in the top 20 wettest years on record and we still have three months to go.