April was the sixth wettest on RECORD in Britain – with 55% more rainfall than average, Met Office reveals

In news that will come as no surprise to most Britons, the Met Office has confirmed that April was the sixth wettest since records dating to 1836.

In all, there was 55 per cent more rainfall than the long term average, the forecasting body said.

It has also been the wettest April since 2012, the provisional statistics show.

Forecasters measure Spring from March to May – and so far the Met Office says we’ve seen 96 per cent of the long term average for the entire season.

Spring has been so wet that both England and Wales have already seen more than their long-term average rainfall for the entire season.

The UK as a whole has seen 96 per cent of its average springtime rainfall.

At this point, we’d normally only have had around two thirds (66 per cent) of average rainfall.

As well as being wet, the weather was also dull, with sunshine levels just 79 per cent of the long-term average for the month.

Many areas exceeded their long-term average monthly rainfall, with Scotland having its fourth wettest April with 148.9mm of rain – more than 60 per cent of its average and the wettest April since 1947.

Met Office Scientist Emily Carlisle said: ‘April has been a continuation of the past few months: often wet, windy and unsettled.

‘April showers were present from the beginning of the month, with frontal systems bringing persistent rain across the UK. 

‘Although a high-pressure system moved over the UK on the 20th bringing some drier weather, by the end of the month, low pressure was back in charge, bringing with it more rain.’

The month started warm, particularly along the southeast coast – with temperatures hitting 21.8°C in Writtle, in Essex.

But temperatures dropped, and remained only slightly below average for most of the last two weeks of April. 

This balanced out the warmer temperatures at the start of the month and resulted in a provisional average mean temperature of 8.3°C for the UK, only 0.4°C higher above the 1991-2020 long-term average.

In all, there was 55 per cent more rainfall than the long term average, the forecasting body said

Cloudy conditions often resulted in overnight temperatures being held up, with the average minimum temperature being above average (+0.8°C).

There were just 122.9 hours of sunshine in April, 79 per cent of the long term average.

There was only one ‘named’ storm – Storm Kathleen, which brought heavy rain and strong winds to Scotland, Wales, parts of Northern Ireland and the west coast of England.

Paddy Graham-Jonesof Albert Bartlett, a leading UK potato supplier said fields of potatoes have rotted due to the wet weather. 

Speaking of one field, he told Sky News: ‘I was hoping I would find one good potato here, but there’s not one left. They’re all rotten.’