Flooded & Water Logged Plots

The winter of 2023/2024 has broken the record for the wettest period, as the eighth wettest on record in the UK according to the Met Office.

The south of England experienced its wettest February in 2024 since 1836, and England has recorded its fourth wettest February on record, although February 2020 was even wetter.

The wettest day ever recorded in Britain was 5 December 2015.

March was a wet month, the Met Office has confirmed, with areas of southern England especially drenched.

While no records were broken, the forecaster said March would go down as a particularly drizzly month, with 27 per cent more rainfall than on average.

Several southern counties, such as Hampshire and Wiltshire, saw at least double the normal rainfall they would expect.

While the start of the month was colder, overall temperatures were 1C above average for the month, with southern England experiencing temperatures of 1.4C above average.

This meant England provisionally recorded the seventh-warmest March on record, with an average temperature of 7.8C. 

Met Office scientist Emily Carlisle said: “Many will remember how wet March has been, with a succession of fronts and the influence of low pressure seemingly never too far away from the UK. 

“Coming off the back of a wet winter and what has been a wet start to the year, many areas have very saturated ground, which has increased the sensitivity to rainfall events in recent weeks.”  

Despite the milder-than-average temperatures, sun was in short supply, with the UK as a whole recording just 95.2 hours of sunshine for the month - 87 per cent of its long-term average.

But why is it raining so much? 

Speaking to the BBC, weather expert Simon King says one thing to blame for the wet weather right now is the jet stream, a fast-flowing wind high in the atmosphere - which is bringing rainy weather across the Atlantic Ocean to the UK.

The jet stream blows from west to east, but the band often shifts north and south because jet streams follow the boundaries between hot and cold air... It is currently south of the UK and we can expect drier (and maybe even warmer) conditions when it either weakens, or moves to the north of the UK.