Umbrellas at the ready – yet more rain is on the way

We may be on the cusp of spring, but a line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night comes to mind: “With hey ho, the wind and rain… For the rain it raineth every day.”

On Wednesday 60mm of rain fell on Dartmoor and parts of Cumbria over a 12-hour period. On Thursday, much of the UK received another heavy downpour including 26.6mm of rain in Goggerdan near Aberystwyth.

Flooding disrupted trains near Devon, while across the country nearly 60 weather warnings were in place.

Even before this week’s latest deluge, our green and pleasant land was saturated. Over the first three weeks of February, rainfall was well above the long-term average for England. In the North West rainfall is now more than 114 per cent of the long-term average and 226 per cent in the East. Attempting to plant two plum trees on my allotment this week, I dug down into a soupy mire. The sound of the sodden earth sucking against my spade was, I must admit, rather marvellous and reminded me of mixing up mud pies as a boy; but wholly unsuitable for fruit trees. I will have to build them up on mounds instead, little islands to survive future storms.

Large-scale farmers have no such options to help preserve spring crops. Take a train to any part of the country right now and you will see plenty of waterlooged fields. With our rivers filled to capacity, many have started to burst their banks.

This weekend offers a respite of sorts: sunshine for many today as temperatures dip down to around average for this time of year. But more wet and muggy weather is waiting on the horizon. Tomorrow a band of rain sweeps across the South. Next week most of us will be back sheltering under our umbrellas. The rain, it raineth. And on it goes ....

An Egyptian goose protects its gosling from the rain in St James’s Park, London