AT the end of last month the Met Office claimed a supposed new daily record rainfall for June, which I showed to be simply not to be true. You can see my article here.
They have now officially declared it as a record in their Monthly Statistics bulletin:
I emailed last week to point out their error and ask for a retraction, but so far have had no response.
So, time to recap:
The Met Office’s own British Rainfall publication clearly shows that much more rainfall fell on June 28th, 1917, at Bruton in Somerset:
https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_ac9ad49d-f836-43d0-84d2-ee30ab340663/
There is no question about the validity of the measurement of 9.56 inches (243mm), nor indeed the other one at Kings School of 8.48 inches (215mm). There is also a similar reading at Aisholt in Somerset of 8.39 inches (213mm).
We know this because the British Rainfall publication in 1917 ran a special report on the storm, because it was so very exceptional:
https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_fef79134-4e1f-4891-96cd-6af8971bf5c1/
The report goes on to convey full confidence in the accuracy of the Somerset readings:
And explains how three official experts were sent to Bruton, who were perfectly satisfied with the measurements after conducting thorough analysis:
Of course, the idea that you can compare Honister Pass, halfway up a mountain, with Somerset, or any other lowland site, is absurd anyway. Whereas, Somerset typically sees annual rainfall of about 28 inches, Honister Pass, at 1100 feet up, gets around 170 inches.
The rain gauge at Honister has only been spasmodically operational for a few years. It is operated by the Environment Agency, and is designed to allow them to predict river flows. It was definitely never intended to be used for climatological purposes.
Rain Gauge at Honister Pass
As for the idea that the rain in and around the Lake District was in any way exceptional on that day, the data says the opposite.
According to the official Met Office data, a total of 13.35mm fell over NW England & N Wales that day. This is in reality a pretty insignificant amount. In data going back to 1931, this total has been exceeded 1058 times, equivalent to 12 times a year!
Days with more than 30mm are perfectly common in that part of the world.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadukp/data/download.html
This whole episode casts the Met Office in a very poor light. First with their zeal in declaring a “record” before the data had even been verified. Then the failure of their systems to warn them that it was not even a “record”. The unwillingness to double check, even though alarm bells should have been ringing. The failure, so far at least, to publish a retraction.
Above all, the use of a rain gauge half way up a mountain to claim a new record, something which is thoroughly unscientific and unprofessional.
As is so often the case, the Met Office have put obsession with promoting their climate change agenda ahead of scientific integrity. As they would have known, their original Twitter post was quickly picked up by the media, who reacted with absurd headlines like the Mail’s :
“Britain suffers its wettest June day EVER as 10 weeks of rain falls in just 24 hours “
Whether the Met Office retract their fake claim, the genie is unfortunately already out of the bottle.
This article first appeared in Not a Lot of People Know That on July 6, 2020, and is republished by kind permission.
