--A good deal has been written about the recent severe flooding -- and the outburst of rain the triggered it -- in the United Kingdom. The meteorology truly is remarkable and is worthy of a few words on this page.
The site of a record-smashing rainfall was the Lake District highland of Cumbria, northwestern England. It is the country`s wettest corner and the site of dramatic contrast in climate over short distances. And it is from here that the runoff of the highest-ever measured rainstorm flowed to inundate a swath of river bottom right to the Irish Sea.
Blogging from Scotland, Mark Vogan has summarized some details relating to the rainstorm and weather records. Many interesting statistics. And this link to the UK Met Office.
The record in question, highest measured 24-hour rainfall (for Great Britain/United Kingdom), was rewritten in the wake of a 314-mm (12.4-inch) cloudburst at Seathwaite, Cumbria. The old record was that of 279 mm (11 inches) of rain at Martinstown, Dorset, on July 18, 1955.
The record in question is not only an all-time, nationwide record, but it is one for the nation with (I believe, anyways) the longest running history of weather records, as United Kingdom weather records reach back nearly 300 years to 1727.
More about Seathwaite itself. While I am unsure as to the exact location in this swatch of rugged landscape, it lies in the heart of the high fells -- hills -- of the heavily glaciated (in Ice Age times) Lake District. I understand it to be within Borrowdale, a hollow reaching into the highlands from the north. Nearby Scafell Pike ranks as highest hill in England. Anyways, the site of the weather station gets an average of about 3552 mm/140 inches of rain (another source says 3,300 mm/130 inches) yearly. It is the wettest inhabited site of record in England.
The reference also gives that nearby Sprinkling Tarn (tarn being a small mountain lake) has an average yearly rainfall of over 5,000 mm (200 inches). How striking the contrast in rainfall with that of Penrith, a town right outside the Lake District. Here, average yearly of only 870 mm/34 inches much more befits the Midland than rainy western Britain.
To the extent that I am aware of the outburst (I was away from the office at the time) the trigger for the flooding rain was a stream of heavy rain tracking northeastward, trainlike. Elements of heavy rain were driven, one after the other, off the Irish Sea and into both Cumbria and neighboring Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. An uplift of the rain-bearing clouds into the highlands greatly bolstered rainfall. Then, too, a share of tropical moisture linked ultimately to Hurricane Ida could have "fattened" the rain output.
The rivers that flooded most severely, the Derwent and tributary Cocker, drain north from the Lake District including Borrowdale, site of the record fall of rain. These rivers transferred the overwhelming runoff into the towns of Cockermouth and Workington.

Image credit: NRLMRY
-Elsewhere, one thing that catches my eye is a gathering tropical depression south of Vietnam and east of the Malay Peninsula. This needs to be watched as a potential flood-maker for southern Thailand (Isthmus of Kra) in about five days.
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