Huge portions of the United Kingdom are experiencing relentless rainfall, with some puts seeing rain for 41 consecutive days and counting. In Studying, within the south east of England, our college’s legitimate rain gauge has recorded precipitation on 31 consecutive days – exceptional in information stretching all of the as far back as 1908.
The trend has no longer simply made 2026 somewhat dreary. It additionally unearths a method by which local weather exchange is making the already naturally variable (some would say gloriously variable) British climate more and more excessive.
In the ones 31 days, Studying has gained 141mm of rain, in comparison to the 30-year reasonable over that duration of simply 58mm – neatly over two times what we’d be expecting on the time of yr.
Upper than reasonable rainfall totals are anticipated, neatly, part of the time. That is simply how imply averages paintings. However it’s the character of this present climate trend this is so odd, and is consistent with the kind of wetter iciness scenario for UK climate that local weather scientists had been caution us to be expecting – even though we’re nonetheless best simply studying why precisely this is occurring on a regional stage.
Over the total breadth of a British yr, the larger image is much more revealing. Remaining yr, the United Kingdom was once grappling with one among the freshest and driest summers on report. A succession of sizzling spells, mixed with lengthy classes that noticed lower than reasonable rainfall, supposed water provides dwindled and well-liked hosepipe bans had been installed position.
As an entire, 2025 from spring onwards was once exceptionally dry. Speedy ahead to the brand new yr, and we’re going through the other – weeks of rainfall and flooding. Those extremes are what we think to peer on this a part of the arena, as warmth builds up within the international environment and oceans. For British other people, that is what local weather exchange presently seems like.
Plonkers wine bar in York was once submerged by means of the River Ouse in January 2026.
Danny Lawson / Alamy
Extra rain, extra intense rain
What’s inflicting this hyperlink between a hotter planet and wetter British winters? One elementary hyperlink is in fundamental physics of the ambience as temperatures upward thrust. Hotter air can grasp extra moisture – about 7% extra for each one level celsius of warming. Because of this when it rains, on reasonable it rains tougher. Larger, heavier downpours turn into extra not unusual.
Local weather exchange may be disrupting the patterns of currents and cycles throughout the environment and oceans that convey the United Kingdom a lot of its climate. As an island archipelago at the edge of 3 competing local weather plenty – the rainy, gentle Atlantic, the chilly, dry Arctic, and the wildly variable temperatures of the Eurasian landmass – it’s used to variability.
However one consistent function performs an outsized function in the kind of climate we get: the jet circulation – a ribbon of fast-flowing air top within the environment. The location of the jet circulation makes a large distinction. Once in a while it flows to the north of Scotland, every so often it’s loads of miles additional south in opposition to Spain. This location issues, since the jet circulation is helping to blow complete climate techniques – assume of a large “bubble” of air sporting its personal climate with it – from the Atlantic in opposition to the United Kingdom.
These days, the jet circulation is located additional south than conventional for the time of yr, guidance consecutive rainy and continuously windy climate techniques at once in opposition to the United Kingdom. On the similar time, a top power machine is sitting over portions of northern Europe, blockading the rainy climate from shifting additional east.
The affect of local weather exchange at the jet circulation is advanced, as a result of this river of air circling the north pole from west to east is influenced by means of a large number of various factors. Something we do know: the Arctic, at floor stage, is warming sooner than different portions of the planet. Because of this the temperature distinction between the poles and the equator, for air at decrease ranges no less than, isn’t as large because it was. This can be influencing the jet circulation to weaken and meander.
With much less power to push them alongside, those climate patterns can get caught in a single location, which means that the techniques of low air power related to rainfall and storms can decelerate or get caught. When a machine bringing rain parks itself over the United Kingdom for days on finish, best to be adopted by means of any other machine, and any other, the result’s relentless rainfall.
To complicate issues additional, top up within the environment the place the jet circulation blows, local weather exchange is in fact making the temperature distinction between equator and poles build up. This can be strengthening the rate and turbulence throughout the jet circulation itself, and simply provides to a posh image of various affect on UK rainfall.
The problem of managing extremes
Those speedy swings between drought and deluge pose severe sensible demanding situations for everybody in the United Kingdom. Water firms should plan for each droughts and floods, even inside of the similar yr. Farmers face unsure rising stipulations, with vegetation rotting within the rainy soil one month, and drying out in droughts a couple of months later. Infrastructure designed for the local weather of the previous won’t deal with the extremes of the long run.
Working out those adjustments isn’t simply an educational workout. It’s very important for serving to communities, companies and governments get ready for what’s coming. As Britain stories those local weather extremes at first-hand, it is necessary to construct resilience into plans for warmer and drier summers, and hotter wetter winters.
