England and Wales Precipitation

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The England and Wales Precipitation (EWP) record is a historical meteorological dataset which was originally published in the journal British Rainfall in 1931 and updated in a greatly revised form by a number of climatologists including Janice Lough, Tom Wigley and Phil Jones during the 1970s and 1980s. The monthly mean rainfall and snowfall for the region of England and Wales are given (in millimetres) from the year 1766 to the present, though the original 1931 dataset went as far back as 1727. [1]

Contents

Data quality

The England and Wales Precipitation series for its earlier years was based on the work of amateur observers whose observations were collected by George James Symons in British Rainfall and analysed extensively in 1931 to form a monthly series as far back as 1727. Detailed analysis during the early 1980s showed by use of principal component analysis that England and Wales could be climatologically divided into five regions corresponding closely to present-day meteorological divisions; [2] however, because of the absence of data from South West England between 1813 and 1816 and from North West England before 1766, [3] the modern series begins in January 1766. Separate data for each region of England go back only to 1873. [4]

Recent analysis suggests that the sparse data (besides the absence of data from South West England for four years, only one station was used per region until the 1820s [2] ) from early years can lead to bias towards drier conditions since higher and wetter areas are not likely to be accounted for, [5] though no effort has yet been made to examine the data. There has also been a suggestion that many of the very earliest values, before circa 1780 and for a few years near 1800 and between 1809 and 1813, are rather too low compared to other estimates from A.F. Jenkinson of the University of East Anglia. [6]

Research into the EWP series since it was compiled have revealed that, overall, annual rainfall has not changed significantly despite some suggestions of a rising trend, [7] but that winter half-year rainfall has substantially increased especially in the more northerly areas of England. [8] Up to 2000, summer rainfall, especially in July and August, over the southern parts of England, showed a substantial decline; however, the very wet summers of 2007 and 2012 may suggest this is not a permanent change. [8] Nonetheless, it is known that the maximum in rainfall during autumn (typical of high latitude maritime climates) has moved towards a later date since the 1960s, especially compared to the 1890s. [7]

Extrema

Taking the 247-year period for the series as a whole:

Wettest

PeriodRecordYear
January185.5 mm (7.30 in) 2014
February169.6 mm (6.68 in) 2020 [9]
March177.5 mm (6.99 in) 1947
April149.9 mm (5.90 in) 2012
May151.8 mm (5.98 in)1773
June160.1 mm (6.30 in) 2012
July182.6 mm (7.19 in) 1828
August192.9 mm (7.59 in) 1912
September189.5 mm (7.46 in) 1918
October218.1 mm (8.59 in) 1903
November202.0 mm (7.95 in) 1852
December193.9 mm (7.63 in) 1876
Spring
(March to May)
363.0 mm (14.29 in)1782
Summer
(June to August)
409.7 mm (16.13 in) 1912
Autumn
(September to November)
502.7 mm (19.79 in) 2000
Winter
(December to February)
455.1 mm (17.92 in) 2013/2014
Year
(January to December)
1,284.9 mm (50.59 in) 1872
Year
(July to June)
1,258.3 mm (49.54 in) 2000/2001

Driest

PeriodRecordYear
January4.4 mm (0.17 in)1766
February3.6 mm (0.14 in) 1891
March5.6 mm (0.22 in)1781
April7.1 mm (0.28 in) 1938
May7.9 mm (0.31 in) 1844
June4.3 mm (0.17 in) 1925
July8.2 mm (0.32 in) 1825
August9.1 mm (0.36 in) 1995
September8.0 mm (0.31 in) 1959
October8.8 mm (0.35 in)1781
November17.0 mm (0.67 in) 1945
December8.9 mm (0.35 in)1788
Spring
(March to May)
54.8 mm (2.16 in)1785
Summer
(June to August)
66.9 mm (2.63 in) 1995
Autumn
(September to November)
128.6 mm (5.06 in) 1978
Winter
(December to February)
88.9 mm (3.50 in) 1963/1964
Year
(January to December)
612.0 mm (24.09 in)1788
Year
(July to June)
558.7 mm (22.00 in)1784/1785

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References

  1. Nicholas, F. J. and Glasspoole, J. 1931. “General Monthly Rainfall over England and Wales 1727 to 1931”, British Rainfall (1931), p. 299.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Lough, Janice; Wigley Tom and Jones, Phil; “Spatial patterns of precipitation in England and Wales and a revised homogeneous England and Wales precipitation series”; in Journal of Climatology; Volume 4, pp. 1-25 (1984)
  3. Craddock, J.M.; “Annual rainfall in England since 1725” in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 102 (1976), pp. 823-840
  4. "Met Office Hadley Centre HadUKP Data Download". www.metoffice.gov.uk.
  5. Simpson, I. R. and Jones, Phil; “Updated precipitation series for the UK derived from Met Office gridded data”; in International Journal of Climatology 32 (2012), pp. 2271–2282
  6. Woodley, M.R.; “A Review of Two National Rainfall Series”; in International Journal of Climatology, 16, pp. 677-687 (1996)
  7. 1 2 Thompson, R.; “A time-series analysis of the changing seasonality of precipitation in the British Isles and neighbouring areas”; in Journal of Hydrology, 224 (1999); pp. 169–183
  8. 1 2 Alexander, L. V. and Jones, Phil; “Updated Precipitation Series for the U.K. and Discussion of Recent Extremes”; in Atmospheric Science Letters, Volume 1 (2001)
  9. "HadEWP ranked driest to wettest from 1766 to 2022". Met Office.
  10. "Monthly England & Wales precipitation (mm). Daily automated values used after 1996". Met Office.

See also