On Sunday, 23 December 2012 08:39:12 UTC, Phil Layton wrote:
Only another 60mm to go before the end of the year!



RR 20.2mm yesterday Tx 12.0c



Phil

Guildford

804.9 mm from 1st January to 23rd December 2012 at West Guildford. NOT overly impressive after 1193.0 mm in 2000!

This year, totals have exceeded 25.4 mm (1") on only 2 days: 10th June; 35.4 mm (missed event while on holiday much like the 5th June deluge in 2011) and 23rd September; 28.5 mm.
In 2000, I recorded 25.4 mm on 9 days and 4 of them were in a 9 day period (29th October ~ 6th November)with one reaching 51.0 mm (6th). There were locally more impressive rainfall events in the drier 2010(667.4 mm)than in 2012!

Can anyone come up with the mechanism why this part of S.E. England has repeatedly missed the higher totals in 2012, which has been a regular feature since the second part of June. Is it a simple effect such as the depressions and fronts moving on a more N.E. course defined by the jetstream, hence deluging Cornwall and Devon while the S.E. just gets long hours of drizzle. Whereas in 2000, the depressions were on a more southerly latitude and pushed east more quickly so the large totals were more widespread over southern England.

Also it seems that the 2012 depressions and rain events are more intense than one would normally expect, further west and although wet further east, the fronts are 'rained out' by the time they get to Guildford. This could be due to less moisture entering the system as they have moved away from the source of the relatively warm Atlantic. I have never seen such a pronounced rain-shadow effect between west and east as in 2012.