Ed Hawkins
This Spring (March-April-May) may end up being the driest on record for the UK. This would also make it the driest of any season in a dataset that goes back to 1836. Spring in 1852 currently holds the record for driest season at 100.7 mm averaged across the UK. www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti...

UK weather: Spring may become ...
UK weather: Spring may become driest on record with no rain in sight

There has been a lack of rainfall in many parts of the UK so far this spring and there is little or no rain in the immediate forecast.

BBC Weather
May 13, 2025 at 3:17pmWeb
Show threadEd HawkinsMay 13, 2025
Of course, the only reason we know about Spring 1852 is the citizen science #RainfallRescue project which enabled the UK rainfall reconstructions to be extended back to 1836. Otherwise the record would be 106mm from Summer 1995. Summer 1976 and Spring 1893 had 107mm. www.bbc.co.uk/news/science...

UK's rainfall records rescued ...
Bluesky

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Show threadEd HawkinsMay 13, 2025
And the wettest UK season? Winter 2013-4 with 540mm, well ahead of Autumn 2000 with 510mm and Winter 2015-6 with 505mm. All in recent memory.
Show threadEd HawkinsMay 14, 2025
And, the driest Spring 1852 was followed later in the year by two extremely wet months. A very interesting rainfall year for the UK.
Show threadEd HawkinsMay 14, 2025
And we also know of some daily rainfall observations during 1852. These are just some of the >100 million such observations which are not available to climate scientists as they have not been extracted from the paper (now scanned) records. bsky.app/profile/rich...

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2kyrdfmt2nmffcaal6kn3ktz/post/3lp56vbwtr22w
@richardjmeats.bsky.social

Daily rainfall for Southchurch in Essex for 1852. Nearly all dry days from the start of March (and even back into February) to May 10th.

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Show threadEd HawkinsMay 14, 2025
And another example from Norfolk - daily rainfall observations during 1852.