UK Weather: Record Rainfall, Flooding Concerns, and a Wet Winter
Are you tired of the constant rain? Well, you're not alone. This year, it seems like the rain just won't stop, and Cardinham in Cornwall has been recording rain every single day so far. But it's not just Cornwall that's been hit hard. Katesbridge in County Down and Aboyne in Aberdeenshire have recorded nearly four times their January average rainfall, and history is repeating itself this month.
And it's not even halfway through February yet! Aboyne has already had well over double the February average rainfall. While this winter has been wet, it's unlikely to beat the rainfall of the wettest winter on record, which occurred in 2013-14.
In the south-west England and South Wales region, data from the Met Office shows that 691mm of rain fell during that winter, causing widespread severe flooding. Combining the figures for December 2025 and January 2026 gives us 415mm, but the record is already looking out of reach.
One parallel between this winter and the winter of 2013-14 is the damage done to the main railway line at Dawlish, which connects southwest England to the rest of the rail network. In February 2014, the track was left dangling precariously high in the air as storms washed away the protecting sea wall. This winter has also seen a section of sea wall collapse due to the onslaught of storms, causing some disruption.
But why so wet? Well, around January 17th, a blocking area of high pressure developed in Scandinavia and is still there today. This has prevented areas of low pressure from moving beyond the UK, causing them to become slow-moving and bringing very wet weather with south-west winds to the south of the UK and south-easterly winds to the north. This wind pattern is responsible for the distribution of rain.
It's worth noting that it hasn't been wet everywhere. North-west England and west Scotland had a much drier January than normal, and parts of the Highlands have only recorded 1mm of rain so far this month. The Scandinavian blocking area of high pressure is finally going to budge this week, allowing our weather to turn colder with some hill snow in the north later this week.
Next week, our weather patterns will become more typical for the time of year with the Atlantic jet stream returning to the north-west of Scotland, rather than taking an unusual position near Morocco. There will still be rain around as we'd expect in winter, but some of the wettest weather will return to west Scotland. The rain won't be as extreme in east Scotland, and in the southwest of England, it won't rain every single day. There will be drier and sunnier days between our weather systems.
As we head towards the end of February, there are hints that an area of high pressure may visit our shores, bringing some more settled weather conditions. It's a long way off, but it's the least we deserve given just how wet and dull it's been over recent weeks.
