The England Wales precipitation series maintained by the Met Office extends back to 1766 and I thought I would just report my findings on the long-term trends that I've calculated in the seasonal values over that period. The method that I've employed is probably not statistically the best (or valid come to that) but I fit a linear trend line to the 247 or so values and then calculate the difference in precipitation from the start of the series in 1766 to the value at the end of the series now.

The headline observations that are quite apparent when you look at the data a

* Annually we are around 5% wetter in England Wales
* Winters are now 35% wetter than in the late 18th century
* Summers are around 14% drier
* The months of December, January and March are up to 50% wetter
* The months May through to September are much drier

Table and graphs can be found he

http://xmetman.wordpress.com/2014/04...precipitation/