Yorkshire and north-east England are experiencing one of their driest years on record, data shows.
The area has seen an average of just 242.8mm of rain so far in 2025 – less than half the amount that had fallen by this stage last year (542.3mm).
It is lower than the total rainfall by this point in 1976 (285.1mm), a year that saw the UK endure one of the most severe droughts in modern history, with heatwave spells lasting more than two weeks in many locations.
The figures, which run up to July 9, are published by the Met Office as part of its Hadley Centre observational data of average daily rainfall.
Cumulative rainfall so far this year in Yorkshire and north-east England is the lowest for this part of the country since 1959, when 238.1mm had fallen by July 9.
The lowest total recorded for this period is 210.3mm in 1949.
Met Office Hadley Centre rainfall data begins in 1931.
The figures also show there have been 87 days so far in 2025 with little or no rainfall in the area (less than 0.1mm): more than any other year since data was first reported.
The previous highest total was 81 days in 1959.
There have been 47 days so far this year when no rainfall was measured at all in Yorkshire and north-east England, just behind the 49 that had been reported at this stage in 2020, but some way below the 81 by this point in 1959.
The overall picture for England and Wales is not quite so stark, with just 16 days so far where no rainfall was recorded and 62 days with less than 0.1mm.
An average of 326.7mm rainfall had fallen across England and Wales by July 9, the lowest for this stage of the year since 1976 (248.3mm).
