February 2020 was the wettest February on record for the UK and the fifth wettest of any calendar month in a series dating back to 1862. 209mm of rain fell across the country, and some areas recorded as much as four times their normal February rainfall, resulting in severe flooding.
So how does this compare to the UK’s wettest month on record: October 1903? The records show that 227mm of rain fell during October 1903, but the observations are not detailed enough to show precisely where and when the most intense rainfall occurred. That’s because thousands of meticulous weather observations are recorded in copperplate hand-writing, but haven’t yet made it to digital form.
Now they have! A call for volunteers to use Covid-19 lockdown time to help rescue rainfall records has resulted in over 15,000 people transcribing all five million UK rainfall measurements recorded between 1820 and 1960, in the space of just three weeks. Once the data has been double checked scientists will be able to compare exceptional months like October 1903 and February 2020, and understand the variation in British weather. Meanwhile, more data awaits. “The next project will be at sea, looking at ship weather logbooks,” says Ed Hawkins, who leads the Weather Rescue project.
