Soggy end to wettest February in 30 years

SCOTLAND’S miserable February saw the country suffer its highest rainfall for the month in 30 years.

Some soggy areas broke even older records, with Midlothian suffering its biggest soaking since the Victorian era.

Glasgow also endured almost three times the amount of rain it would normally expect in any February, at almost 10in.

Meanwhile, England, Wales and

Northern Ireland recorded their wettest February ever.

Scotland was lashed by three named storms over the course of the month, with Ciara, Dennis and finally Jorge inundating the country as a whole with more rain than it has seen since 1990.

Fortunately, the Met Office says long-term forecasts for the middle of March suggest high pressure building, which could bring drier and calmer conditions.

The severe weather warnings began at the start of February, with 80mph Storm Ciara sweeping across the country to ruin the first weekend of the month.

Storm Dennis roared in the following weekend, damaging hundreds of homes in the south of Scotland. One hillwalker was killed after being blown into a gorge near Fort William.

Another soggy weekend followed on February 22 and 23 before Storm Jorge arrived and added to the record rainfall totals right at the end of the month.

Yesterday, it was discovered that Jorge – named by the Spanish Met Office – had caused a landslip on the main West Coast rail line near Warrington in Cheshire, leading to cancellation of train services from Glasgow and Edinburgh to London via Preston.

Oli Claydon, of the Met Office, said: ‘We have had quite an exceptionally wet February.

‘We have looked back at statistics and found that it has contributed to a wetter winter than normal, overall.

‘Scotland, as a whole, recorded its second-wettest February on record, with 10.8in [274.3mm] for the entire month.

‘It surpassed the previous second-wettest February, from 1997, when the total was 10.5in [266.7mm].

‘And it came close to rivalling Scotland’s all-time record, set in 1990 with 11.3in [287mm].’

Individual parts of the country took a more severe battering than others. Dundee received 279 per cent of its normal February rainfall, while Glasgow’s 9.7in (246.4mm) was 281 per cent of what the city would normally get.

In England, Lancashire endured 338 per cent of its normal rainfall.

Midlothian had its secondwettest February ever, at 295 per cent of average, coming close to the record set in 1894.

Roofing firms say crews have been unable to work for most of the month and building sites have been at a standstill on days of heavy rain and high winds.

Economists say it will be a few weeks before they can assess the wet weather’s impact on the country’s production and spending.

The blame has been placed on the jet stream, a high-altitude core of strong winds which controls our weather. It was running at between 200mph and 250mph in February, firing a succession of low pressure systems directly across the Atlantic.

‘Close to rivalling all-time record’