WEYMOUTH had its second wettest February on record, data reveals.

A total of 145.3mms of rain fell during the past month – not quite beating the 1990 record of 153.5mms, but still more than double the average for the month. The second highest had been 2014 which saw 127.4mm – but that has now been beaten by this year’s count, following the wild weather from Storms Ciara, Dennis, and most recently, Jorge at the weekend

The Voluntary Observer of Climate Data for the Met Office said: “The general pattern of rainfall for Weymouth in the past decade has given us relatively low rainfall in the summer months and higher rainfall in the winter months; the last three years have been very much biassed towards this pattern which was forecast by the Meteorological Office.

“The average annual rainfall for Weymouth for the past decade has been 846mms, equivalent to 33.8 inches. This figure allows for considerable differences from month to month and year to year. For the years 2016/17/18 the years’ average rainfall was below average.

“In 2019 the below average rainfall continued through the first eight months then everything changed and a succession of depressions came across the Atlantic from September dumping above average rainfall in this part of the UK.”

“Weymouth rainfall for September to December totalled 595.9mms or 23.5 inches. This year the depressions have continued coming from the Atlantic, driven by the jetstream above. January rainfall totalled 106.6mms and February 118.2 to date (last week). This means that in the last six months Weymouth has had a total of 820.7mms or 32.3 inches of rain or very nearly a year’s rainfall and therefore making up the shortfall of the last three years.

“People may ask if this variation in rainfall has anything to do with global warming. I would suggest it is just the sort of variance one can expect for an island bordering the Atlantic Ocean.”