I have been collating the monthly rainfall data at Seathwaite ( Cumbria) and with some help from the Met Office and local EA office now have a monthly totals from 1845 to present day.

I thought I would create a chart to show the rainfall over the years and added a trend line. I was fully expecting a rise in yearly rainfall over the time period, when in fact its flat. With climate change is this something to be expected ?. Would anyone suggest any other ways of producing a chart ? 

 

( I am struggling to upload the image at the moment, you will have to use that link below)

 

 

 http://www.bramptonweather.co.uk/images/Seathwaite%20Graph.JPG

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I think it's very hard to say whether you'd expect an increase or not. There does seem to be a hint of an increase over the last 20 years or so.

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You sounded quite disappointed after all your hard work. 

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Actually, having had another look at your chart, don't think that "flat line" truly represents your findings.

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Try a, say, 5-year rolling average? or superimposing lines for +/- 1 SD either side of the trend?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I think your chart needs to include a longer term rolling average (30 years ?) which is quite easy to generate and chart in Excel

Then my guess you will end up with something very similar to the overall UK rainfall 1860-2022 as published by the metO

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Thanks for the replies. I was disappointed with my findings !!

Ill have a look at some of suggestions and try again

cheers

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Thanks for the replies. I was disappointed with my findings !!

Ill have a look at some of suggestions and try again

cheers

What were you hoping to see

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In reply to Cumbrian Snowman.

Since Feb/March 1991? I have much more readily associated Seathwaithe with rain than before. Two friends and myself set off from Seathwaite to climb Great Gable in a heavy snowstorm. After ploughing through deep snow in a blizzard for about an hour, we decided that because of the conditions, we would miss out Green Gable and soon afterwards Great Gable too and headed for Wasdale Head, so we skirted to the north and , passing close to Beckhead Tarn, headed down the east of Kirk Fell. During this time the snow turned to sleet and soon rain. All heavy stuff. 

We got to the bottom soaked to the bone and headed to The Wadsdale Head Inn, tried to dry out but with not much success. After a few beers we had to return to Seathwaite and so set off in the torrential rain. We got back OK but soaked.

The rainfall here must have been about three inches. However, to the East, York got seriously flooded with several inches of rain falling in the River Ouse catchment area where a great deal of snow melted rapidly.

This experience reinforced the link between Seathwaite and being the wettest place in England.

Does this show up in your records?

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In reply to Cumbrian Snowman.

Since Feb/March 1991? I have much more readily associated Seathwaithe with rain than before. Two friends and myself set off from Seathwaite to climb Great Gable in a heavy snowstorm. After ploughing through deep snow in a blizzard for about an hour, we decided that because of the conditions, we would miss out Green Gable and soon afterwards Great Gable too and headed for Wasdale Head, so we skirted to the north and , passing close to Beckhead Tarn, headed down the east of Kirk Fell. During this time the snow turned to sleet and soon rain. All heavy stuff. 

We got to the bottom soaked to the bone and headed to The Wadsdale Head Inn, tried to dry out but with not much success. After a few beers we had to return to Seathwaite and so set off in the torrential rain. We got back OK but soaked.

The rainfall here must have been about three inches. However, to the East, York got seriously flooded with several inches of rain falling in the River Ouse catchment area where a great deal of snow melted rapidly.

This experience reinforced the link between Seathwaite and being the wettest place in England.

Does this show up in your records?

 

The 'Jaws of Borrowdale' are notorious, with the topography creating a lot of orographic forcing. I've been there in a summer cloudburst during a really humid spell in the early 00's, the wrong side of the river (which was rising rapidly by the time we'd grabbed our things and made our way to the crossing part). The car was parked at the bottom of a track, and it was like being parked in the middle of a river; we were unable to drive (couldn't see out the windows!) for about 20 mins. It passed as quickly as it came, the sun came back out, and it was a lovely late afternoon

 

 

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Personally I was expecting to see a steady rise in rainfall, then increasing sharper last 30 years. I had nothing back this up apart from my "thoughts" that a warming world would lead to higher rainfall ( and temperature rise aswell)  

 

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Personally I was expecting to see a steady rise in rainfall, then increasing sharper last 30 years. I had nothing back this up apart from my "thoughts" that a warming world would lead to higher rainfall ( and temperature rise aswell)  

 

So the weather is not playing ball with increased rainfall forecasts is it? Yet we still hear that increased rainfall here is a matter of fact and this is probably what promoted your thoughts. Nor is it obviously getting any drier. This is all local of course but I do wonder what similar investigations elsewhere might find.

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Personally I was expecting to see a steady rise in rainfall, then increasing sharper last 30 years. I had nothing back this up apart from my "thoughts" that a warming world would lead to higher rainfall ( and temperature rise aswell)  

 

Actually I thought your results mapped quite well on to what I was expecting.

There was very little effect from man-made climate change up until around 1960 and then a steadily increasing rate of temperature rise up until today and your graph shows that reflected in your local rainfall totals

Between 1845 and 1960 there were small natural oscilations of about 0.2C in the global temperature with cycle length of about 60 years and these may account for oscillations in the rainfall patterns. In addition there were perodic El Nino/La Nina events and volcanic episodes and of course the local rainfall will not aleays follow global trends

Even in the UK I have done the same exercise for Kew Gardens weather station down here in London going back to 1860 and the latest few decades (since around 1960) is actually showing a slight downward trend as the southern UK adopts what looks like a more Mediterranean climate

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I would like to know the rainfall for Seathwaite for the period 1914-18.  The reason is a follows:  In 1915 there was a drought on the Furness Fells where Barrow-in-Furness took its water from. The three reservoirs supplying this important town on war production on average saw 53in of rainfall, but the 1915 drought vastly reduced their levels.  However, Seathwaite Tarn Reservoir with an average of 90in. of rain was said to be only 7 inches below its normal level in 1915, leaving more than the capacity of the three Furness Fells Reservoirs when full. Barrow was allowed to take water from the River Duddon supplemented with water from Seathwaite reservoir when the river was low.  Hope this makes sense.
 

I would like to know the rainfall for Seathwaite for the period 1914-18.  The reason is a follows:  In 1915 there was a drought on the Furness Fells where Barrow-in-Furness took its water from. The three reservoirs supplying this important town on war production on average saw 53in of rainfall, but the 1915 drought vastly reduced their levels.  However, Seathwaite Tarn Reservoir with an average of 90in. of rain was said to be only 7 inches below its normal level in 1915, leaving more than the capacity of the three Furness Fells Reservoirs when full. Barrow was allowed to take water from the River Duddon supplemented with water from Seathwaite reservoir when the river was low.  Hope this makes sense.
 

5km monthly rainfall 1910-2016 is available in csv format by Easting and Northing at

https://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ukcp09/data/gridded-land-obs/gridded-land-obs-monthly/timeseries/rainfall

1 km daily and monthly rainfall 1836-2021 in NetCDF format is available for analysis at

https://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ukmo-hadobs/data/insitu/MOHC/HadOBS/HadUK-Grid/v1.1.0.0/ 

but additional software will be required to analyse the NetCDF format and the files for download are very large (esp daily 48 files of 330MB each)

(You will need to enrol as a user to use both above but this should be quite quick and straightforward)

The Eastings and Northings or Grid References for anywhere can be found using the Grid Reference Finder at

https://gridreferencefinder.com/ 
 

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The query about rainfall at Seathwaite during 1915 caused me to look into the Hadley monthly rainfall figures for the NW England region. It seems 1915 was an interesting year for rainfall. Spring was dry, but not exceptionally so, but it was followed by a very dry June. After a small recovery during July & August, Autumn 1915 is the driest on record in the NW England series - not just the driest, but driest by a whopping margin.