[BUTTERFLY]

I remember reading in the (I think) 1955 Guinness Book of Records (which I realise is not always 100% reliable for sources of weather information) that in 1923, it rained every day from 12th August to 8th November inclusive at both Eallabus, Isle of Islay, Western Scotland, and Ballynahinch Castle, County Galway, in Western Ireland. It also says that at the latter, 309 raindays have been recorded in a year (it doesn't say whether this was 1923). However, if my memory serves me correctly, I have seen Weather Reports for these months in 1923 and there were some dry days in September and/or October at one or both of these sites, so that if true, then there wasn't an 89 day spell of raindays. This leaves the question as to what the longest such run is; certainly it is not unknown at wetter sites for a month to record rain every day. http://www.blaven.com/weather.aspx states "On St. Swithin's Day 2009 it rained at Lusa.

30 days later rain had fallen on each and every day. Lusa broke a United Kingdom record set back in 1861 for the longest recorded continuous run of wet days.

After 40 days Lusa found fame and fortune in the national press. Held up by some that there might be something in this St. Swithin myth after all, facts were not allowed to get in the way of a good newspaper story. The facts from the Met Office said that rain fell on St. Swithin's Day on 55 previous occasions. None were followed by long runs of wet weather."

This would imply that the record is a relatively modest 30 or possibly 31 days.

Obviously the St. Swithun legend is just that, although has a grain of truth in that in high summer, the weather pattern is often firmly established, in that if it is unsettled around mid-July this may well continue right through August, as in 2009, and vice-versa (a good example might be 1976 when August was rainless in places, although whether St. Swithun's Day, 15th July, was itself dry I do not know - it may have been dry at some spots at least, and with rain in others). This year, after about 6 weeks wet weather from early June to about mid-July, the weather, on the whole, improved towards the end of July, about the time of the Olympics in London, with warmer and drier weather though not with long dry spells.

If anyone has access to 1923 Monthly Weather Reports from August to November and can quote some figures, I would be very interested. I can't say I remember reading anything in the press about Lusa in 2009 as indicated above.

[Dave Hancox]

Found that interesting. Longest wet period I have recorded on my PWS is 21 days to 20th September 2012.

[Richie]

For this station the longest run of raindays (>0.2mm) is 16 days, from January 4 ~ 20 2010.
Records only from 2004.

[Dave K]

I'll just remind of this long forgotten thread which is not relevant to the OP but some may wish to contribute there

http://www.ukweather...infall-records/

My site record run is 26 days - and if that is possible in the "dry" SE then surely the official UK record would be longer than 30 or 31? Unless of course we are only considering falls of 1 mm or more, rather than 0.2 mm / 0.01"?

This post has been edited by Dave K: 17 November 2012 - 09:50