The UK daily rainfall data contain rainfall accumulation and precipitation amounts over a 24 hour period. The data were collected by observation stations operated by the Met Office across the UK and transmitted within the following message types: NCM, AWSDLY, DLY3208 and SSER. The data spans from 1853 to 2023. Over time a range of rain gauges have been used - see section 5.6 and the relevant message type information in the linked MIDAS User Guide for further details.

This version supersedes the previous version (202308) of this dataset and a change log is available in the archive, and in the linked documentation for this record, detailing the differences between this version and the previous version. The change logs detail new, replaced and removed data. These include the addition of data for calendar year 2023.

This dataset is part of the Midas-open dataset collection made available by the Met Office under the UK Open Government Licence, containing only UK mainland land surface observations owned or operated by Met Office. It is a subset of the fuller, restricted Met Office Integrated Data Archive System (MIDAS) Land and Marine Surface Stations dataset, also available through the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis - see the related dataset section on this record. A large proportion of the UK raingauge observing network (associated with WAHRAIN, WADRAIN and WAMRAIN for hourly, daily and monthly rainfall measurements respectively) is operated by other agencies beyond the Met Office, and are consequently currently excluded from the Midas-open dataset. Currently this represents approximately 13% of available daily rainfall observations within the full MIDAS collection.

The UK daily weather observation data contain meteorological values measured on a 24 hour time scale. The measurements of sunshine duration, concrete state, snow depth, fresh snow depth, and days of snow, hail, thunder and gail were attained by observation stations across the UK and transmitted within DLY3208, NCM, AWSDLY and SYNOP messages. The data span from 1880 to present.

The UK hourly rainfall data contain the rainfall amount (and duration from tilting syphon gauges) during the hour (or hours) ending at the specified time. The data also contains precipitation amounts, however precipitation measured over 24 hours are not stored. Over time a range of rain gauges have been used - see the linked MIDAS User Guide for further details.

This version supersedes the previous version of this dataset and a change log is available in the archive, and in the linked documentation for this record, detailing the differences between this version and the previous version. The change logs detail new, replaced and removed data.

The data were collected by observation stations operated by the Met Office across the UK and transmitted within the following message types: NCM, AWSHRLY, DLY3208, SREW and SSER. The data spans from 1915 to 2023.

This dataset is part of the Midas-open dataset collection made available by the Met Office under the UK Open Government Licence, containing only UK mainland land surface observations owned or operated by the Met Office. It is a subset of the fuller, restricted Met Office Integrated Data Archive System (MIDAS) Land and Marine Surface Stations dataset, also available through the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis - see the related dataset section on this record. A large proportion of the UK raingauge observing network (associated with WAHRAIN, WADRAIN and WAMRAIN for hourly, daily and monthly rainfall measurements respectively) is operated by other agencies beyond the Met Office, and are consequently currently excluded from the Midas-open dataset.

[THIS DATASET HAS BEEN WITHDRAWN]. 1 km gridded estimates of daily and monthly rainfall for Great-Britain and Northern Ireland (together with approximately 3000 km2 of catchment in the Republic of Ireland) from 1890 to 2017. The rainfall estimates are derived from the Met Office national database of observed precipitation. To derive the estimates, monthly and daily (when complete month available) precipitation totals from the UK rain gauge network are used. The natural neighbour interpolation methodology, including a normalisation step based on average annual rainfall, was used to generate the daily and monthly estimates. The estimated rainfall on a given day refers to the rainfall amount precipitated in 24 hours between 9am on that day until 9am on the following day. The CEH-GEAR dataset has been developed according to the guidance provided in BS 7843-4:2012. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/ee9ab43d-a4fe-4e73-afd5-cd4fc4c82556

Environment & Business - Land and Water.

The Rainfall Long-term Average dataset contains data for average rainfall usually over the period 1961-1990. This is a spatial dataset.

The UK daily rainfall data contain rainfall accumulation and precipitation amounts over a 24 hour period. The data were collected by observation stations operated by the Met Office across the UK and transmitted within the following message types: NCM, AWSDLY, DLY3208 and SSER. The data spans from 1853 to 2020. Over time a range of rain gauges have been used - see section 5.6 and the relevant message type information in the linked MIDAS User Guide for further details. This version supersedes the previous version of this dataset and a change log is available in the archive, and in the linked documentation for this record, detailing the differences between this version and the previous version. The change logs detail new, replaced and removed data. This dataset is part of the Midas-open dataset collection made available by the Met Office under the UK Open Government Licence, containing only UK mainland land surface observations owned or operated by Met Office. It is a subset of the fuller, restricted Met Office Integrated Data Archive System (MIDAS) Land and Marine Surface Stations dataset, also available through the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis - see the related dataset section on this record. A large proportion of the UK raingauge observing network (associated with WAHRAIN, WADRAIN and WAMRAIN for hourly, daily and monthly rainfall measurements respectively) is operated by other agencies beyond the Met Office, and are consequently currently excluded from the Midas-open dataset. Currently this represents approximately 13% of available daily rainfall observations within the full MIDAS collection.

This record is for Approval for Access product AfA501 for approximately 1000 automatic rainfall data from the Environment Agency rainfall API.

The data is available on an update cycle which varies across the country, typically updated daily but updated faster is rainfall is detected. This is update frequency is usually increased during times of flooding, etc.

Readings are transferred via telemetry to internal and external systems in or close to real-time.

Measurement of the rainfall is taken in millimetres (mm) accumulated over 15 minutes. Note that rainfall data is recorded in GMT, so during British Summer Time (BST) data may appear to be an hour old. Data comes from a network of over 1000 gauges across England. Data shown is raw data collected from the gauges and is subject to quality control procedures. As a result, values may change after publication on this website.

Continuous rainfall information is also stored on our hydrometric archive, Wiski, and can be provided in non real-time on request through our customer contact centre. This raw rainfall data is provided to the Met Office for quality control along with all the data from our registered daily storage gauges (c.1400). The quality controlled dataset is covered in AfA148 Quality Controlled Daily and Monthly Raingauge Data from Environment Agency Gauges.

Data from a small selection of Met Office raingauges are included in our open data feed. This data is also available from the Met Office as open data.

What does the data show?

This data shows the annual number of 10mm rainfall days (days where rainfall is equal to or greater than 10mm) averaged over the 1991-2020 period. The data is from the HadUK-Grid v.1.1.0.0 dataset and is provided on the 2km British National Grid (BNG).

What are the naming conventions and how do I explore the data?

This data contains a field for the average over the period, named ‘Rainfall 10mm Days’.

To understand how to explore the data, see this page: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/457e7a2bc73e40b089fac0e47c63a578

Data source

HadUK-Grid v1.1.0.0 (downloaded 11/03/2022)

Useful links

Further information on HadUK-Grid Further information on understanding climate data within the Met Office Climate Data Portal

These data are based on the UK rainfall chemistry data held on the UK-AIR database operated on behalf of Defra (http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/). A subset of 20 sites was analysed, being those with the longest continuous data record from 1986 to 2011. Rainfall samples from bulk collectors were taken weekly or two-weekly at sites across the UK and analyzed by a central laboratory. The raw reported data contain some samples which were contaminated by bird droppings, or by wind-blown dust, and should not be used to estimate annual or long-term wet deposition at the measurement sites. Some samples were missing for other reasons, such as physical loss of the rain sample prior to analysis. Following identification and removal of contaminated sample data, the missing data were estimated, where possible, using statistical interpolation across both time and space with the GENSTAT procedure MULTMISSING. The final datasets contain the accepted and estimated data values, flagged as appropriate. The data filenames correspond to the sites as listed in the UK-AIR database (Allt a'Mharcaidh, Bannisdale, Barcombe Mills, Bottesford, Eskdalemuir, Flatford Mill, Goonhilly, High Muffles, Hillsborough, Loch Dee, Lough Navar, Preston Montford, Pumlumon, Stoke Ferry, Strathvaich, Thorganby, Tycanol Wood,Wardlow Hay Cop, Whiteadder, Yarner Wood). This cleaned dataset was prepared by Neil Cape, Ron Smith and David Leaver at CEH Edinburgh on behalf of Defra and the Devolved Administrations under the project Pollutant Deposition Processes. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/ada39609-ddec-4cbe-85c2-4fdd6bd774d7

This dataset comprises of derived annual statistics for measures of rainfall, streamflow, temperature and stream acidity (pH) for a stream, draining a small, approximately 1.2 square kilometres, upland conifer catchment. The stream, Nant Trawsnant, drains into the Llyn Brianne reservoir, Powys, United Kingdom. The data are for a 31 year period covering 1st April 1982 to 1st April 2012. The streamflow and acidity data are derived from 15 minute resolution observations throughout the calendar year 2013 from associated stream gauging and water quality stations on the Nant Trawsnant. The monthly rainfall measures presented, were derived from local rain gauges. The monthly temperature measures presented were derived from observations at a weather station near Talgarth, Powys. Routines within the Lancaster University Computer-Aided Program for Time-series Analysis and Identification of Noisy Systems (CAPTAIN) Toolbox for Matlab were used to develop a dynamic model of these data. These models were then used to simulate the 31-year record for which monthly statistics were derived. The statistics were derived to develop greater understanding of the controls on the long-term dynamics of aquatic biodiversity observed by other researchers in this stream. The work was part of the Diversity in Upland River Ecosystem Service Sustainability (DURESS) project, NERC grant NE/J014826/1. Members of staff from the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University installed, maintained and downloaded the stream gauging and water quality stations and also carried out statistical analysis of the data.

Average Rainfall (mm) and average Temperature (centigrade) for the North East England and East England Met Office Climate district, which includes Lincolnshire. This dataset shows the average Rainfall in millimetres and average Temperature in centigrade, by month, meteorological season, and annual calendar year. The data is sourced from the UK Met Office website. See the Source link for more information about the data and the area it covers.

What does the data show?

Wind-driven rain refers to falling rain blown by a horizontal wind so that it falls diagonally towards the ground and can strike a wall. The annual index of wind-driven rain is the sum of all wind-driven rain spells for a given wall orientation and time period. It’s measured as the volume of rain blown from a given direction in the absence of any obstructions, with the unit litres per square metre per year.

Wind-driven rain is calculated from hourly weather and climate data using an industry-standard formula from ISO 15927–3:2009, which is based on the product of wind speed and rainfall totals. Wind-driven rain is only calculated if the wind would strike a given wall orientation. A wind-driven rain spell is defined as a wet period separated by at least 96 hours with little or no rain (below a threshold of 0.001 litres per m2 per hour).

The annual index of wind-driven rain is calculated for a baseline (historical) period of 1981-2000 (corresponding to 0.61°C warming) and for global warming levels of 2.0°C and 4.0°C above the pre-industrial period (defined as 1850-1900). The warming between the pre-industrial period and baseline is the average value from six datasets of global mean temperatures available on the Met Office Climate Dashboard: https://climate.metoffice.cloud/dashboard.html. Users can compare the magnitudes of future wind-driven rain with the baseline values.

What is a warming level and why are they used?

The annual index of wind-driven rain is calculated from the UKCP18 local climate projections which used a high emissions scenario (RCP 8.5) where greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow. Instead of considering future climate change during specific time periods (e.g., decades) for this scenario, the dataset is calculated at various levels of global warming relative to the pre-industrial (1850-1900) period. The world has already warmed by around 1.1°C (between 1850–1900 and 2011–2020), so this dataset allows for the exploration of greater levels of warming.

The global warming levels available in this dataset are 2°C and 4°C in line with recommendations in the third UK Climate Risk Assessment. The data at each warming level were calculated using 20 year periods over which the average warming was equal to 2°C and 4°C. The exact time period will be different for different model ensemble members. To calculate the value for the annual wind-driven rain index, an average is taken across the 20 year period. Therefore, the annual wind-driven rain index provides an estimate of the total wind-driven rain that could occur in each year, for a given level of warming.

We cannot provide a precise likelihood for particular emission scenarios being followed in the real world in the future. However, we do note that RCP8.5 corresponds to emissions considerably above those expected under current international policy agreements. The results are also expressed for several global warming levels because we do not yet know which level will be reached in the real climate; the warming level reached will depend on future greenhouse emission choices and the sensitivity of the climate system, which is uncertain. Estimates based on the assumption of current international agreements on greenhouse gas emissions suggest a median warming level in the region of 2.4-2.8°C, but it could either be higher or lower than this level.

What are the naming conventions and how do I explore the data?

Each row in the data corresponds to one of eight wall orientations – 0, 45, 90, 135, 180, 225, 270, 315 compass degrees. This can be viewed and filtered by the field ‘Wall orientation’.

The columns (fields) correspond to each global warming level and two baselines. They are named 'WDR' (Wind-Driven Rain), the warming level or baseline, and ‘upper’ ‘median’ or ‘lower’ as per the description below. For example, ‘WDR 2.0 median’ is the median value for the 2°C projection. Decimal points are included in field aliases but not field names; e.g., ‘WDR 2.0 median’ is ‘WDR_20_median’.

Please note that this data MUST be filtered with the ‘Wall orientation’ field before styling it by warming level. Otherwise it will not show the data you expect to see on the map. This is because there are several overlapping polygons at each location, for each different wall orientation.

To understand how to explore the data, see this page: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/457e7a2bc73e40b089fac0e47c63a578

What do the ‘median’, ‘upper’, and ‘lower’ values mean?

Climate models are numerical representations of the climate system. To capture uncertainty in projections for the future, an ensemble, or group, of climate models are run. Each ensemble member has slightly different starting conditions or model set-ups. Considering all of the model outcomes gives users a range of plausible conditions which could occur in the future.

For this dataset, the model projections consist of 12 separate ensemble members. To select which ensemble members to use, annual wind-driven rain indices were calculated for each ensemble member and they were then ranked in order from lowest to highest for each location.

The ‘lower’ fields are the second lowest ranked ensemble member. The ‘upper’ fields are the second highest ranked ensemble member. The ‘median’ field is the central value of the ensemble.

This gives a median value, and a spread of the ensemble members indicating the range of possible outcomes in the projections. This spread of outputs can be used to infer the uncertainty in the projections. The larger the difference between the lower and upper fields, the greater the uncertainty.

‘Lower’, ‘median’ and ‘upper’ are also given for the baseline periods as these values also come from the model that was used to produce the projections. This allows a fair comparison between the model projections and recent past.

Data source

The annual wind-driven rain index was calculated from hourly values of rainfall, wind speed and wind direction generated from the UKCP Local climate projections. These projections were created with a 2.2km convection-permitting climate model. To aid comparison with other models and UK-based datasets, the UKCP Local model data were aggregated to a 5km grid on the British National Grid; the 5 km data were processed to generate the wind-driven rain data.

Useful links

Further information on the UK Climate Projections (UKCP). Further information on understanding climate data within the Met Office Climate Data Portal.

Environment & Business - Land and Water.

The Environment Agency has approximately 1000 real time rain gauges which are connected by telemetry. Measurements of the amount of precipitation (mm) are captured in Tipping Bucket Raingauges (TBR). Each gauge provides event rainfall data (time of tip) every hour if rainfall has been recorded in that hour. Event data is only reported hourly when rainfall events (at least a single 0.2mm tip) are detected. Information is made available externally via an up to 15 min update The format of the data and the frequency at which the data is updated varies depending on which download route is being used by the customer. The Real-time and Near-real-time Raingauge dataset contains data from these gauges. This is a time series dataset.

UKCP09: 5 km gridded data - monthly averages for the number of days of rainfall ≥10 mm. The data set contains 12 files (one for each month for the 1961-1990 average period). The individual grids are named according to the following convention: variablename_mmm_Average_Actual.txt where mmm is the month name (e.g. Jan).

The datasets have been created with financial support from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and they are being promoted by the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) as part of the UK Climate Projections (UKCP09). http://ukclimateprojections.defra.gov.uk/content/view/12/689/.

To view this data you will have to register on the Met Office website, here: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/ukcp09/gds_form.html.

Rainfall averages for UK over the 30-year 1961-1990, interpolated to a 1 km grid. This 30-year period is a Primary Reference Period recommended by World Meteorological Organisation.

This dataset contains over 72,000 event hyetographs associated with rainstorms that contain Annual Maximum rainfall (AMAX) values for durations between 5-min and 24-hr for a set of ~1,300 rain gauges in Great Britain. The record length and completeness varies on a gauge-by-gauge basis, the median record length is 19 years and the processed record ends in 06/2018. Note that a rainstorm may have a different duration to the associated AMAX value, e.g., a 24-hr AMAX total may be caused by an 18.25-hr event. Further note that multiple AMAX totals may be embedded within a single rainstorm, e.g., Storm Desmond can be associated with the 2-, 3-, 6-, 12- and 24-hr AMAX totals for 2009 recorded at Honister Pass. Each hyetograph is accompanied by summary statistics corresponding to the underlying rainstorm and associated AMAX totals. This dataset enables the study of the temporal characteristics of rainfall as well as more general studies regarding the climatology of AMAX-causing events in GB. Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/3d20ce5a-9115-4ad3-a55c-d51d66863757

Extract of Data relating to the recorded monthly rainfall.The dataset 'Scotland_W Rainfall (mm)' is an Areal series, starting from 1910. Allowances have been made for topographic, coastal and urban effects where relationships are found to exist. Seasons: Winter=Dec-Feb, Spring=Mar-May, Summer=June-Aug, Autumn=Sept-Nov. (Winter: Year refers to Jan/Feb). Values are ranked and displayed to 1 decimal point. Where values are equal, rankings are based in order of year descending. Data are provisional from January 2013 & Winter 2012/2013 Dataset available here West of Scotland monthly rainfall from 1910 - 2013 is compiled using the main Glasgow Weather station based in Bishopton. Data is collected from numerous weather stations including those based in Glasgow. Last updated 01/07/2013. 'Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0' Licence: None

HadUK-Grid is a collection of gridded climate variables derived from the network of UK land surface observations. The data have been interpolated from meteorological station data onto a uniform grid to provide complete and consistent coverage across the UK. The dataset at 12 km resolution is derived from the associated 1 km x 1 km resolution to allow for comparison to data from climate projections. The dataset spans the period from 1836 to 2021, but the start time is dependent on climate variable and temporal resolution. The gridded data are produced for daily, monthly, seasonal and annual timescales, as well as long term averages for a set of climatological reference periods. Variables include air temperature (maximum, minimum and mean), precipitation, sunshine, mean sea level pressure, wind speed, relative humidity, vapour pressure, days of snow lying, and days of ground frost. This data set supersedes the previous versions of this dataset which also superseded UKCP09 gridded observations. Subsequent versions may be released in due course and will follow the version numbering as outlined by Hollis et al. (2018, see linked documentation). The changes for v1.1.0.0 HadUK-Grid datasets are as follows: * The addition of data for calendar year 2021 * The addition of 30 year averages for the new reference period 1991-2020 * An update to 30 year averages for 1961-1990 and 1981-2010. This is an order of operation change. In this version 30 year averages have been calculated from the underlying monthly/seasonal/annual grids (grid-then-average) in previous version they were grids of interpolated station average (average-then-grid). This order of operation change results in small differences to the values, but provides improved consistency with the monthly/seasonal/annual series grids. However this order of operation change means that 1961-1990 averages are not included for sfcWind or snowlying variables due to the start date for these variables being 1969 and 1971 respectively. * A substantial new collection of monthly rainfall data have been added for the period before 1960. These data originate from the rainfall rescue project (Hawkins et al. 2022) and this source now accounts for 84% of pre-1960 monthly rainfall data, and the monthly rainfall series has been extended back to 1836. Net changes to the input station data used to generate this dataset: -Total of 122664065 observations -118464870 (96.5%) unchanged -4821 (0.004%) modified for this version -4194374 (3.4%) added in this version -5887 (0.005%) deleted from this version The primary purpose of these data are to facilitate monitoring of UK climate and research into climate change, impacts and adaptation. The datasets have been created by the Met Office with financial support from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in order to support the Public Weather Service Customer Group (PWSCG), the Hadley Centre Climate Programme, and the UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) project. The output from a number of data recovery activities relating to 19th and early 20th Century data have been used in the creation of this dataset, these activities were supported by: the Met Office Hadley Centre Climate Programme; the Natural Environment Research Council project "Analysis of historic drought and water scarcity in the UK"; the UK Research & Innovation (UKRI) Strategic Priorities Fund UK Climate Resilience programme; The UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Public Engagement programme; the National Centre for Atmospheric Science; National Centre for Atmospheric Science and the NERC GloSAT project; and the contribution of many thousands of public volunteers. The dataset is provided under Open Government Licence.

This dataset is from a network of rain gauges located across the Pontbren study site in mid-Wales, UK. Rain gauges were installed at various locations across the site between 2005-2009 as part of the Pontbren Catchment Study Land Use and Management Multi-Scale Experimental Programme. Each sub-folder within the Pontbren Rain Gauge data set contains data for each of the different monitoring locations. Each location has a 0.2 mm tipping bucket rain gauge along with a storage gauge, apart from at the Bowl study site where only a tipping bucket rain gauge was installed. Tipping bucket rain gauges were connected to data loggers and the number of tips occurring in a 10 minute period recorded. This data is presented in mm of rainfall / day (mmd 1). Data are provided in the form of .txt files and the tipping bucket data is generally split into six-month blocks. Associated with each data point in the .txt file is a quality assurance code, QA code, in the adjacent column. Storage gauge data where it exists are presented in the form of mm of rainfall occurring between a start and finish time. Details of the dataset, the quality assurance coding system and monitoring locations are provided in the supporting documentation.