The wettest months in the United Kingdom tend to be at the start and end of the year. In the period of consideration, the greatest measurement of rainfall was nearly 217 millimeters, recorded in December 2015. The lowest level of rainfall was recorded in April 2021, at 20.6 millimeters. Rainy days The British Isles are known for their wet weather, and in 2024 there were approximately 164 rain days in the United Kingdom. A rainday is when more than one millimeter of rain falls within a day. Over the past 30 years, the greatest number of rain days was recorded in the year 2000. In that year, the average annual rainfall in the UK amounted to 1,242.1 millimeters. Climate change According to the Met Office, climate change in the United Kingdom has resulted in the weather getting warmer and wetter. In 2022, the annual average temperature in the country reached a new record high, surpassing 10 degrees Celsius for the first time. This represented an increase of nearly two degrees Celsius when compared to the annual average temperature recorded in 1910. In a recent survey conducted amongst UK residents, almost 80 percent of respondents had concerns about climate change.

Rainfall in England amounted to *** millimeters in February 2020. This was the most rainfall recorded in a single month during the period of consideration. Meanwhile, the driest month during this period was in May 2020, in which less than ** millimeters of rain fell. In April 2025, England's precipitation amounted to **** millimeters, a decrease of ** percent in comparison to the same month the previous year.

England's highest monthly mean air temperatures are typically recorded in July and August of each year. Since 2015, the warmest mean temperature was measured in July 2018 at 18.8 degrees Celsius. On the other hand, February of that same year registered the coolest temperature, at 2.6 degrees Celsius. In April 2025, the mean air temperature was 10.3 degrees Celsius, slightly higher than the same month the previous year. The English weather England is the warmest region in the United Kingdom and the driest. In 2024, the average annual temperature in England amounted to 10.73 degrees Celsius – around 1.1 degrees above the national mean. That same year, precipitation in England stood at about 1,020 millimeters. By contrast, Scotland – the wettest region in the UK – recorded over 1,500 millimeters of rainfall in 2024. Temperatures on the rise Throughout the last decades, the average temperature in the United Kingdom has seen an upward trend, reaching a record high in 2022. Global temperatures have experienced a similar pattern over the same period. This gradual increase in the Earth's average temperature is primarily due to various human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation, which lead to the emission of greenhouse gases. This phenomenon has severe consequences, including more frequent and intense weather events, rising sea levels, and adverse effects on human health and the environment.

There were around 15 rainy days in the United Kingdom in July 2024. A rainday is when one millimeter or more of rain occurs in a day. The highest number of rain days was recorded in December 2015, at 22.2 The fourth quarter was the wettestThe wettest periods of the year tend to be the start and the end. In 2023, the fourth quarter was the wettest, with an average of 419 mm of rainfall. October and December of that year recorded the highest monthly rainfall levels at 177 and 189 mm, respectively. Regional weatherDue to the United Kingdom’s geographical location and landscape, weather conditions can vary greatly. Scotland is, on average, the wettest country. Most rainfall is concentrated in the Scottish Highlands, as precipitation often occurs in mountainous regions. As rainfall comes in from the Atlantic, the northern and western parts of the UK are most susceptible to precipitation. This explains why England is the driest of all the regions, as rain deposits reduce as they move east.

The highest average temperature recorded in 2024 until November was in August, at 16.8 degrees Celsius. Since 2015, the highest average daily temperature in the UK was registered in July 2018, at 18.7 degrees Celsius. The summer of 2018 was the joint hottest since institutions began recording temperatures in 1910. One noticeable anomaly during this period was in December 2015, when the average daily temperature reached 9.5 degrees Celsius. This month also experienced the highest monthly rainfall in the UK since before 2014, with England, Wales, and Scotland suffering widespread flooding. Daily hours of sunshine Unsurprisingly, the heat wave that spread across the British Isles in 2018 was the result of particularly sunny weather. July 2018 saw an average of 8.7 daily sun hours in the United Kingdom. This was more hours of sun than was recorded in July 2024, which only saw 5.8 hours of sun. Temperatures are on the rise Since the 1960s, there has been an increase in regional temperatures across the UK. Between 1961 and 1990, temperatures in England averaged nine degrees Celsius, and from 2013 to 2022, average temperatures in the country had increased to 10.3 degrees Celsius. Due to its relatively southern location, England continues to rank as the warmest country in the UK.

The annual number of rain days in the UK has fluctuated over the past three decades. In 2024, there were *** days in which * mm or more of rain fell. The year with the greatest number of rain days was 2000 when ***** days had at least * mm of rain. England is the driest country in the UK England is on average the driest country in the United Kingdom. In 2024, the country recorded an annual rainfall of **** mm. After England, Northern Ireland is the country that receives the least amount of rainfall across the UK. Wettest regions in Britain Despite Cardiff being the wettest city in the United Kingdom according to the Met Office, Scotland had received on average the largest volume of annual rainfall in the past 10 years. The northern and western regions of the UK – where rainfall is arriving from the Atlantic – tend to be the wettest in the country.

In March 2023, there were***** rain days in England. This was the greatest number of rain days recorded in a month during the period in consideration. For comparison, in March 2025, there were just *** rain days. February 2020 was also an especially wet month in the United Kingdom, with an average rainfall of ***** millimeters. The month with the fewest number of rain days during this period was May 2020, with just *** rain days.

This is the HadISDH.extremes 1.1.0.2023f version of the Met Office Hadley Centre Integrated Surface Dataset of Humidity (HadISDH). HadISDH.extremes is a near-global gridded monthly land surface extremes index climate monitoring product. It is created from in situ sub-daily observations of wet bulb (converted from dew point temperature) and dry bulb temperature from weather stations. The observations have been quality controlled at the hourly level with strict temporal completeness thresholds applied at daily, monthly, annual, climatological and whole period scales to minimise biases. Gridbox months are assessed for inhomogeneity and scores provided (see Homogeneity Score Document in Docs). The data are provided by the Met Office Hadley Centre and this version spans 1/1/1973 to 31/12/2023.

The data are monthly gridded (5 degree by 5 degree) fields. Products are available for 27 different heat extremes indices based on the ET-SCI (Expert Team on Sector-Specific Climate Indices) framework. These indices capture a range of moderate to severe extremes. They utilise the daily maximum and minimum values of sub-daily dry bulb and wet bulb temperature observations. Note that these will most likely underestimate the true extremes even when hourly data are available. The data are designed for assessing large scale features over long time scales, ideally using the anomaly fields as these are less affected by sampling biases. Users are advised to cross-compare with national datasets other supporting evidence when assessing small scale localised features.

This version is the first with annual updates envisaged. An update record will be maintained in the Docs section.

HadISD.3.4.0.2023f is the basis of HadISDH.extremes.

To keep informed about updates, news and announcements follow the HadOBS team on twitter @metofficeHadOBS.

For more detailed information e.g bug fixes, routine updates and other exploratory analysis, see the HadISDH blog: http://hadisdh.blogspot.co.uk/

References:

When using the dataset in a paper please cite the following papers (see Docs for link to the publications) and this dataset (using the "citable as" reference):

Willett, K, 2023: HadISDH.extremes Part 1: a gridded wet bulb temperature extremes index product for climate monitoring. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, 40, 1952–1967, doi: 10.1007/s00376-023-2347-8. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-023-2347-8

Willett, K. 2023: HadISDH.extremes Part 2: exploring humid heat extremes using wet bulb temperature indices. Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, 40, 1968–1985, doi: 10.1007/s00376-023-2348-7. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-023-2348-7

Dunn, R. J. H., et al. 2016: Expanding HadISD: quality-controlled, sub-daily station data from 1931, Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems, 5, 473-491. Smith, A., N. Lott, and R. Vose, 2011: The Integrated Surface Database: Recent Developments and Partnerships. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 92, 704-708, doi:10.1175/2011BAMS3015.1

The United Kingdom experienced an average of 1,242.1 millimeters of rainfall in 2024, a decrease of 5.8 percent in comparison to the previous year. While 2024 saw substantial rainfall, it did not surpass the thus-far peak of the century, with 1,373 millimeters of rain recorded in 2000. Regional variations and seasonal patterns Rainfall distribution across the UK is far from uniform, with Scotland and Wales consistently receiving the highest annual precipitation. In 2024, they recorded an average of 1,571.7 millimeters and 1,600.8 millimeters, respectively, significantly above the UK’s average. This disparity is largely due to both countries’ mountainous terrain, which is more susceptible to Atlantic weather systems. Seasonally, the wettest months in the UK typically occur in the winter, with the highest precipitation levels seen between November and February. Climate change impact on UK weather Climate change is influencing UK weather patterns, leading to warmer and wetter conditions overall. While annual rainfall fluctuates, there is a trend towards more extreme weather events. For example, 2020 and 2022 saw rain deviations from the long-term mean in the UK of more than 100 millimeters in February. As weather patterns continue to evolve, monitoring rainfall trends remains crucial for understanding and adapting to a changing climate.

The gridded Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Time-series (TS) data version 4.09 data are month-by-month variations in climate over the period 1901-2024, provided on high-resolution (0.5x0.5 degree) grids, produced by CRU at the University of East Anglia and funded by the UK National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), a NERC collaborative centre.

The CRU TS4.09 variables are cloud cover, diurnal temperature range, frost day frequency, wet day frequency, potential evapotranspiration (PET), precipitation, daily mean temperature, monthly average daily maximum and minimum temperature, and vapour pressure for the period January 1901 - December 2024.

The CRU TS4.09 data were produced using angular-distance weighting (ADW) interpolation. All versions prior to 4.00 used triangulation routines in IDL. Please see the release notes for full details of this version update.

The CRU TS4.09 data are monthly gridded fields based on monthly observational data calculated from daily or sub-daily data by National Meteorological Services and other external agents. The ASCII and NetCDF data files both contain monthly mean values for the various parameters. The NetCDF versions contain an additional integer variable, ’stn’, which provides, for each datum in the main variable, a count (between 0 and 8) of the number of stations used in that interpolation. The missing value code for 'stn' is -999.

All CRU TS output files are actual values - NOT anomalies.

Between 2001 and 2024, the average rainfall in the United Kingdom varied greatly. In 2010, rainfall dropped to a low of 1,020 millimeters, which was a noticeable decrease when compared to the previous year. However, the following year, rainfall increased significantly to a peak of 1,889 millimeters. During the period in consideration, rainfall rarely rose above 1,500 millimeters. In 2024, the annual average rainfall in the UK surpassed 1,386 millimeters. Monthly rainfall On average, rainfall is most common at the start and end of the year. Between 2014 and 2024, monthly rainfall peaked in December 2015 at approximately 217 millimeters. This was the first of only two times during this period that the average monthly rainfall rose above 200 millimeters. This was a deviation from December’s long-term mean of some 134 millimeters. Rainfall highest in Scotland In the United Kingdom, rain is often concentrated around mountainous regions such as the Scottish Highlands, so it is no surprise to see that – on average – it is Scotland that receives the most rainfall annually. However, in 2024, Wales received the highest rainfall amounting to approximately 1,600 millimeters. Geographically, it is the north and west of the United Kingdom that receives the lion's share of rain, as it is more susceptible to rainfall coming in from the Atlantic.

Abstract

The first detailed reconstruction of the terrestrial paleoclimate development of the UK Neogene (?Langhian to Piacenzian) is presented. The paleoclimate data are derived from the paleobotanical record using two probability-based reconstruction techniques CREST (Climate REconstruction SofTware) (Chevalier et al. 2014) and CRACLE (Climate Reconstruction Analysis using Coexistence Likelihood Estimation) (Harbert & Nixon 2015) that use Bayesian and likelihood estimation probability respectively. The results of these reconstructions are presented alongside reconstructions using the widely-applied Co-existence Approach (CA) (Utescher et al. 2014) for comparison. While all three techniques use the climate requirements of their Nearest Living Relatives as the basis of their reconstruction, they use different database observations. CREST and CRACLE use the GBIF (Global Biodiverstiy Information Facility) (GBIF, 2021) as well as WorldClim inputs for the 19 bioclimate variables used by BIOCLIM (http://www.worldclim.org/bioclim). Meanwhile, the CA uses the Palaeoflora database, meaning the input for the three models is different. The reconstructions for the UK Neogene palaeoclimate come from 4 localities (12 samples total) spanning the Middle Miocene (Langhian) to Pliocene (Piacenzian): Trwyn y Parc, Anglesey (Middle Miocene), Brassington Formation, Derbyshire (Serravallian-Tortonian), Coralline Crag Formation (latest Zanclean-earliest Piacenzian) and Red Crag Formation (Piacenzian-Gelasian) of southeast England. We present CREST and CRACLE reconstructions of Mean Annual Temperature (MAT), Mean Temperature of Warmest Quarter (MTWQ), Mean Temperature of Coldest Quarter (MTCQ), Mean Annual Precipitation (MAP) and precipitation seasonality (CoV ×100). The CA does not reconstruct MTWQ, MTCQ or precipitation seasonality. Instead, the CA reconstructs Warmest Month Mean Temperature (WMMT) and Coldest Month Mean Temperature (CMMT). The proportion of rainfall falling in the wettest months of the year (RMPwet(%)) was used as a proxy for precipitation seasonality following the methodology of Jacques et al. (2011) and Utescher et al. (2015). The CREST R-code output provides 0.5 and 0.95 (2-σ) uncertainties as well as an optimum and mean for each variable. The CRACLE R-code output provides both parametric and non-parametric joint likelihoods (P-CRACLE and N-CRACLE) with 0.95 (2-σ) uncertainties and a mean that is based on P-CRACLE. The CA generates a minimum and maximum likelihood which together comprise the coexistence interval. The Neogene climate reconstruction of the UK shows a cooling trend from the Langhian to the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary. CREST and CRACLE produce trends and values consistent with Co-existence Approach data with 0.95 uncertainties overlapping with the CA coexistence interval.

File Descriptions

Table S1 displays the complete reconstruction for the UK Neogene using CREST, CRACLE and the Co-existence Approach.
Table S2 displays detailed site information including: modern and paleo latitude and longitude, dating technique, modern climatology and fossil assemblage diversity (number of fossil taxa versus number of NLRs used for climate reconstruction). Modern climatology has been included to serve as a comparison to the reconstructed Neogene climate. This data has been extracted from WorldClim 2.1 (Fick & Hijmans, 2017).
Data Set S1 contains the list of fossil spore and pollen taxa per site and associated Nearest Living Relatives (NLRs), where identifiable, used as the input for CREST, CRACLE and the Co-existence Approach. Relic taxa are included and highlighted in red.
Data Set S2 is included to show the effect relic taxa have on paleoclimate reconstructions. The relic taxa are removed following the protocol of Utescher et al. (2014) whereby known relic taxa are removed from analyses to avoid biased reconstructions. Relic taxa removed from analyses include Cathaya, Cryptomeria, Pinus sylvestris and Sciadopitys when present.
Data Set S3 is included to show the effects of removing family-level identifications in CRACLE reconstructions. Removing families is shown to generate a less informative reconstruction. Including both genera- and family-level classifications of NLR (Nearest Living Relative) is recommended, however we suggest identifying NLRs (Nearest Living Relatives) to genera-level wherever possible.

CRU TS2.1: The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Time-Series (TS) version 2.1 of gridded data of month-by-month variation in climate (Jan. 1901- Dec. 2002).

The CRU TS 2.1 dataset is comprised of 1224 monthly grids of observed climate, for the period 1901-2002, covering the global land surface at 0.5 degree resolution. There are nine climate variables available: daily mean, minimum and maximum temperature, diurnal temperature range, precipitation, wet day frequency, frost day frequency, vapour pressure and cloud cover.

The primary purpose for this dataset is to provide environmental modellers with some of the inputs they require to run their models.

The creator of this data set (Dr. T. D. Mitchell) retains full ownership rights over it. The dataset may be freely used for non-commerical scientific and educational purposes, provided it is described as CRU TS 2.1 and attributed to: Mitchell, T.D., and P.D. Jones (2005): An improved method of constructing a database of monthly climate observations and associated high resolution grids. Int. J. Climatol. 25: 693–712, DOI: 10.1002/joc.1181

The CRU CY3.21 dataset consists of country averages at a monthly, seasonal and annual frequency, for ten climate variables in 289 countries for the period Jan. 1901 to Dec. 2012. It was produced in 2013 by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia. Spatial averages are calculated using area-weighted means. Variables include cloud cover (cld), diurnal temperature range (dtr), frost day frequency (frs), precipitation (pre), daily mean temperature (tmp), monthly average daily maximum (tmx) and minimum (tmn) temperature, vapour pressure (vap), Potential Evapo-transpiration (pet) and wet day frequency (wet). CRU CY3.21 is derived directly from the CRU TS3.21 dataset. Version numbering is matched between the two datasets. The data are available as text files with the extension '.per' and can be opened by most text editors. To understand the CRU-CY3.21 dataset, it is important to understand the construction and limitations of the underlying dataset, CRU TS3.21. It is therefore recommended that all users read the paper referenced below (Harris et al, 2014). CRU CY data are available for download to all CEDA users.

This layer provides an early warning of persistent extreme wet and dry precipitation events over the world derived from 1-month Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI-1). The forecasts of SPI are derived from the forecasted precipitation provided by the UK Meteorological Office (UKMO) to the Copernicus C3S probabilistic multi-system seasonal forecast ensemble. The early warning is plotted only when and where the forecast is considered robust (with at least 40% of the ensemble members associated with extreme forecasts) and associated with relative extreme values (SPI lower than -1). The colors indicate the return period of the intensity and the coherency of the ensemble members of the forecast model according to the reference period that spans from 1993 to 2016.

This layer provides an early warning of persistent extreme wet and dry precipitation events over the world derived from 6-month Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI-6). The forecasts of SPI are derived from the forecasted precipitation provided by the UK Meteorological Office (UKMO) to the Copernicus C3S probabilistic multi-system seasonal forecast ensemble. The early warning is plotted only when and where the forecast is considered robust (with at least 40% of the ensemble members associated with extreme forecasts) and associated with relative extreme values (SPI lower than -1). The colors indicate the return period of the intensity and the coherency of the ensemble members of the forecast model according to the reference period that spans from 1993 to 2016.

This is the HadISDH.land 4.6.0.2023f version of the Met Office Hadley Centre Integrated Surface Dataset of Humidity (HadISDH). HadISDH.land is a near-global gridded monthly mean land surface humidity climate monitoring product. It is created from in situ observations of air temperature and dew point temperature from weather stations. The observations have been quality controlled and homogenised. Uncertainty estimates for observation issues and gridbox sampling are provided (see data quality statement section below). The data are provided by the Met Office Hadley Centre and this version spans 1/1/1973 to 31/12/2023.

The data are monthly gridded (5 degree by 5 degree) fields. Products are available for temperature and six humidity variables: specific humidity (q), relative humidity (RH), dew point temperature (Td), wet bulb temperature (Tw), vapour pressure (e), dew point depression (DPD).

This version extends the previous version to the end of 2023. Users are advised to read the update document in the Docs section for full details on all changes from the previous release.

As in previous years, the annual scrape of NOAAs Integrated Surface Dataset for HadISD.3.4.0.2023f, which is the basis of HadISDH.land, has pulled through some historical changes to stations. This, and the additional year of data, results in small changes to station selection. The homogeneity adjustments differ slightly due to sensitivity to the addition and loss of stations, historical changes to stations previously included and the additional 12 months of data.

To keep informed about updates, news and announcements follow the HadOBS team on twitter @metofficeHadOBS.

For more detailed information e.g bug fixes, routine updates and other exploratory analysis, see the HadISDH blog: http://hadisdh.blogspot.co.uk/

References:

When using the dataset in a paper please cite the following papers (see Docs for link to the publications) and this dataset (using the "citable as" reference):

Willett, K. M., Dunn, R. J. H., Thorne, P. W., Bell, S., de Podesta, M., Parker, D. E., Jones, P. D., and Williams Jr., C. N.: HadISDH land surface multi-variable humidity and temperature record for climate monitoring, Clim. Past, 10, 1983-2006, doi:10.5194/cp-10-1983-2014, 2014.

Dunn, R. J. H., et al. 2016: Expanding HadISD: quality-controlled, sub-daily station data from 1931, Geoscientific Instrumentation, Methods and Data Systems, 5, 473-491.

Smith, A., N. Lott, and R. Vose, 2011: The Integrated Surface Database: Recent Developments and Partnerships. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 92, 704-708, doi:10.1175/2011BAMS3015.1

We strongly recommend that you read these papers before making use of the data, more detail on the dataset can be found in an earlier publication:

Willett, K. M., Williams Jr., C. N., Dunn, R. J. H., Thorne, P. W., Bell, S., de Podesta, M., Jones, P. D., and Parker D. E., 2013: HadISDH: An updated land surface specific humidity product for climate monitoring. Climate of the Past, 9, 657-677, doi:10.5194/cp-9-657-2013.

Periods of extreme wet-weather elevate agricultural diffuse water pollutant loads and climate projections for the UK suggest wetter winters. Within this context, we monitored nitrate and suspended sediment loss using a field and landscape scale platform in SW England during the recent extreme wet-weather of 2019–2020. We compared the recent extreme wet-weather period to both the climatic baseline (1981–2010) and projected near- (2041–2060) and far- (2071–2090) future climates, using the 95th percentiles of conventional rainfall indices generated for climate scenarios downscaled by the LARS-WG weather generator from the 19 global climate models in the CMIP5 ensemble for the RCP8.5 emission scenario. Finally, we explored relationships between pollutant loss and the rainfall indices. Grassland field-scale monthly average nitrate losses increased from 0.39-1.07 kg ha−1 (2016–2019) to 0.70–1.35 kg ha−1 (2019–2020), whereas losses from grassland ploughed up for cereals, increased from 0.63-0.83 kg ha−1 to 2.34–4.09 kg ha−1. Nitrate losses at landscape scale increased during the 2019–2020 extreme wet-weather period to 2.04–4.54 kg ha−1. Field-scale grassland monthly average sediment losses increased from 92-116 kg ha−1 (2016–2019) to 281–333 kg ha−1 (2019–2020), whereas corresponding losses from grassland converted to cereal production increased from 63-80 kg ha−1 to 2124–2146 kg ha−1. Landscape scale monthly sediment losses increased from 8-37 kg ha−1 in 2018 to between 15 and 173 kg ha−1 during the 2019–2020 wet-weather period. 2019–2020 was most representative of the forecast 95th percentiles of >1 mm rainfall for near- and far-future climates and this rainfall index was related to monitored sediment, but not nitrate, loss. The elevated suspended sediment loads generated by the extreme wet-weather of 2019–2020 therefore potentially provide some insight into the responses to the projected >1 mm rainfall extremes under future climates at the study location.

The amount of monthly rainfall in Northern Ireland varies from year to year. During the period in consideration, the lowest rainfall levels were recorded in April 2021 at just **** millimeters. Meanwhile, the most rainfall occurred in February 2020, when ***** millimeters fell. In that same month, there were **** rain days recorded, an unusually high number for February. A rain day is when there is a total of 1 mm or more of rain in a day. Seasonal rainfallSince 2010,********has been on average the wettest season in Northern Ireland. In 2023, however, ****** was the wettest season, with nearly *** mm of rainfall. That year, winter was the driest season, with *** mm of rainfall. Regional rainfallWhen compared to the rest of the UK, Northern Ireland receives less rain than both Scotland and Wales, but more than England. In 2024, the country experienced****** mm of rainfall. In comparison, Scotland and Wales received ***** and ******mm, respectively. This is due to the Scottish Highlands high levels of rain and Wales’ location in comparison to the Atlantic Ocean.