Sunday 4 January 2015

UK Rainfall 2014, a sneak peek.

I just, rather optimistically, checked UK rainfall data to see if it had been updated. It hasn't, but I was reminded that while the annual data is for January to December, the seasons run from December to November (using meteorological seasons). The main index I will continue to use will be the calendar year, January to December, but while I wait for PIOMAS data, here's a quick early look at UK rainfall for 2014.


Click on the graph to enlarge (as usual).


Using the meteorological seasons, 2014 was the second wettest year since 1910, and adds to the pattern of wet years in recent decades. At 1355mm it was 306mm above the 1951 to 1980 baseline (as used by NASA GISS Temperature Datasets). By season, 82% of the increase above the 1951 to 1980 baseline was due to the record wet winter of December 2013 to February 2014.

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