I know we're venturing way off topic but the rainfall stats are interesting, particularly that Manchester is drier than Leeds!
I think in a country as small as Britain relief is probably the biggest determinant of rainfall. Take my field for example. It's in Kent, which contains some of the driest sites in Britain close to the sea particularly the Thames Estuary. It is in the far South East. But being inland(ish) and in a N-S valley up in the downs at about 80m asl it actually gets a lot of rain, despite also getting lots of sunshine and warm average temperatures. I've measured 569mm in the year to date and considering the second half of the year is on average wetter, that probably means ending up somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500mm for the year. More what you might associate with the Welsh hills. There are 2 stations within 5 miles of me one of which gets almost exactly 50% of my rainfall (on the Eastern side of the ridge and I am on the West), the other about 75% (on the Northern edge). Some of that may be rain gauge calibration in the other sites but I know mine is pretty accurate as I've calibrated it with a physical collector.
By the way this evening's ICON is a nice one. The rain ends mid week and tops out at 28mm in Wessex and 25mm around London (2mm in Manc, zero in Glasgow).
Brockley, South East London 30m asl