Record UK Wet in 2012
The year 2012 may well prove to be the wettest year in the modern meteorological record for the United Kingdom.
Parts of the U.K. have already broken hundred-year rainfall records, the U.K. Met Office website said last week in its blog.
As of Dec. 26, highest-ever yearly rainfall was reached for England as a whole and for some regions within England, such as the Midlands.
Preliminary estimate of 2012 rainfall as a percentage of normal amount, as of Dec. 26. Dark blue, stretching from southeast Scotland to southwest England, shows at least 135 percent of normal rainfall for the period 1981-2010.
As of the 26th, only an average rainfall of 46 mm (1.81 inches) across U.K. was needed to break the nation's standing record amount of 1,337.3 mm (52.65 inches), which was estimated for the year 2000.
Wet weather between the 26th and 31st of the month may have been enough to break the old record, although it will likely take until some time in early January for the Met Office to compile all the data for the year.
The modern weather record for the U.K. begins with the year 1910, the Met Office said.
Exception wet has spread over most of England to eastern Scotland, according to the Met Office.
What is remarkable is that, as late as early April, much of the U.K. was facing drought water restrictions, following many months of below-normal rainfall. What followed was record spring and summer rainfall, turning drought to flood.
Flooding rains returned in late November, recurring during the latter half of December.
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