High risk of unprecedented UK rainfall in the current climate

Abstract

In winter 2013/14 a succession of storms hit the UK leading to record rainfall and flooding in many regions including south east England. In the Thames river valley there was widespread flooding, with clean-up costs of over £1 billion. There was no observational precedent for this level of rainfall. Here we present analysis of a large ensemble of high-resolution initialised climate simulations to show that this event could have been anticipated, and that in the current climate there remains a high chance of exceeding the observed record monthly rainfall totals in many regions of the UK. In south east England there is a 7% chance of exceeding the current rainfall record in at least one month in any given winter. Expanding our analysis to some other regions of England and Wales the risk increases to a 34% chance of breaking a regional record somewhere each winter.A succession of storms during the 2013-2014 winter led to record flooding in the UK. Here, the authors use high-resolution climate simulations to show that this event could have been anticipated and that there remains a high chance of exceeding observed record monthly rainfall totals in many parts of the UK.