My memories as an observer on a wet day or night shift, were of hourly observations where I reported total hourly rainfall typically in the range 0.2 to 2 mm per hour. Admittedly my memory isn't fantastic, but nowadays if it rains (and I know I live in Devon now) it pours!

I do have an automatic weather station to watch rainfall intensities which might skew things, but as an observer we always had the tipping bucket gauge that gave off an audible click in the office as the counter updated, so it's not that I'm any more attentive than I was back then. Don't get me wrong, there were many occasions in showers or thunderstorms when you could report closer to 10 mm in a single hour, and I don't think the frequency of those events has changed. It's the other slow-moving frontal events I am thinking of, when instead of reporting several hours of slight (0.6 mm/hr) occasionally moderate rain (0.6 to 3.9 mm/hr), and perhaps an hour of heavier rain (=4.0 mm/hr) as the front passed through, but in recent years all you just seem to get is a succession of hours of heavy rain.

Perhaps it's that I'm finally coming to terms (after 12 years) with how rain falls in this part of the country and it's just taken me a long time to notice it!

Anyway here is my best guess of rainfall accumulations across the UK for yesterday 0700 and today at 0645 UTC (13/14 August 2015). I must say the total is spot on for here in mid-Devon. There is a sharp line running down through the British Isles marking the extent of the rain, and it also captures a number of drier pockets in East Anglia, West Wales and Central southern England. see http://wp.me/p3yVic-1hS