Monthly and annual totals of RAINFALL 1978 for the United Kingdom \ ' DATA UKMO Duplicate National Meteorological Library FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon. EX1 3PB Met Office National Meteorological Library and Archive Alexandria FitzRoy Road Exeter EX1 3PB UK Tel: +44 (0)1392 88 4838 Fax: 5681 Email: [email protected] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk This publication must be returned or renewed by the last date shown below. Items cannot be renewed if reserved by other borrowers. Extended loans must be authorised bv the Librarian. Publications must NOT be passed to other readers Monthly and annual totals of RAINFALL 1978 for the United Kingdom 380780011 15072 © Crown copyright 1983 Published by the Meteorological Office, London Road, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 2SZ UDC 551 506 1(41-4) ISBN 0 86180 143 1 Cover photograph Snow at Great Barford on 11th April 1978 (c) C.J.Richards INTRODUCTION This publication 1. The present publication is the tenth in the new paper-back series which provides the informa­ tion on rainfall over the United Kingdom that was formerly given in Part I of British Rainfall. It gives monthly and annual totals of rainfall and, where available, the rainfall on the wettest day of the year by amount and date(s). Station details 2. The publication includes for each station its 'Rainfall Station Number' (previously known as its 'Hydrometric Station Number'): this is the reference number used by the Meteorological Office to identify the station's rainfall data. 3. The county in which the rain-gauge is located is given by the 'County Number'. The counties in this volume are those which came into existence after the 1974 reorganization of Local Government in England and Wales, and after the 1975 reorganization in Scotland. The new county number, Ccc, comprises C the country and cc the county within the country. In Wales the county of Powys has been divided into two parts, north and south, each given a separate county number: this is to maintain a link with the 'districts' adopted by the Meteorological Office in its Monthly Weather Report. In the London area, all stations within administrative authorities bearing the name 'London Borough of ...' are shown within the county of Greater London. In Scotland the reorganization introduced Regional Council areas but, as the former county names are still largely used, the county numbering system adopted by the Meteorological Office serves the dual purpose of identifying both Regional Council and old county areas, and the three-figure county number may be regarded as being CRc, where C is the country number, R is the Regional Council number and c is the county number within the Region. (Where c is 6 or greater, the old county has been divided between two Regional Councils and the two parts are separately identi­ fied.) A complete decode of the system is given on pages x xi. 4. The location of the rain-gauge sites is given by National Grid Reference to the nearest 100 metres, and the altitude of the rain-gauge site above mean sea level is given to the nearest metre. 5. The name of the rainfall station is that used by the Meteorological Office under rules which require that the primary name should normally appear on the 1-inch Ordnance Survey map and/or its 1:50 000 metric successor. Where stations exist on islands, the island name is given in capital letters as the first part of the name. Where it is desirable to identify the location beyond the name of the town, village, etc., a supplementary part of the name appears after a comma. In a decreasing number of cases it is desirable to retain the name under which data were published in British Rainfall (prior to 1969): thus there will remain some instances where longer-term station names do not adhere to these rules and the names may not in fact appear on current Ordnance Survey maps. Abbreviations or initials are used only in forms that are readily identifiable, although there are rules applicable to certain standard abbreviations, such as S. Wks = Sewage Works (or Sewage Treatment Works), P. Sta. = Pumping Station, Res. = Reservoir, Met. Office = Meteorological Office (where the term applies only to sites manned by personnel of the Meteoro­ logical Office or at Royal Naval Air Stations by personnel of the Directorate of Naval Oceanography and Meteorology). * Where a station name is prefixed by an asterisk, the rain-gauge is set with its rim at ground level, surrounded by a pattern of antisplash grid which is acceptable to the Meteorological Office. # Where a station name is prefixed by a hatch symbol, the station is located in England although it is shown within the Hydrometric Areas associated with Scottish River Purification Boards; such stations fall within the data areas of the Northumbrian River Authority if in the north­ east and of the North West Water Authority if in the north-west. >Where a station name is prefixed by a 'greater than' sign, the data originated from a rain- gauge of a tipping-bucket type which provides data acceptable to Meteorological Office stand­ ards for data archiving purposes. 6. The average annual rainfall at stations for the latest reference period, 1941 70, is given in as many cases as possible. Estimated averages are not included. Representative figures (Table B) for the monthly and annual rainfall of 1978 in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man are given as percentages of the longer-period averages (1941 70) in Tables C and D. Rivers and streams 7. The publication follows earlier practice in that it endeavours to associate rain-gauges with particular catchments and accordingly names the associated rivers and streams. 8. It is not practicable to identify every stream in the country and some minor features have necessarily been ignored. However, in general, a stream is separately identified if it is more than four miles long and has, or has had, a number of rainfall stations within its catchment. 9. As with station names, a number of subjective decisions have had to be taken. The name of the river or stream not uncommonly changes throughout its course: a stream which enters and leaves a lake may thereby acquire a new name. In general, such rivers are identified by the name in use at the lowest reaches, that at the mouth or that at the confluence with a larger river to which it is a tributary. Water authorities and hydrometric areas 10. The water industry was also reorganized in England and Wales in April 1974 when the many 'River Authorities' were replaced by ten larger regional 'Water Authorities'; similarly, in 1975 there were changes in Scotland resulting in fewer 'River Purification Boards' each covering larger geographical areas. 11. As the administrative structure within Water Authorities does not necessarily follow hydro- logical boundaries, and is in any case subject to revision from time to time, it is not practicable to publish the rainfall data under sub-headings related to (say) Water Authority Divisions. Accord­ ingly, the data are now published within 'Hydrometric Area' groupings and maps showing the relationship between these Hydrometric Areas and the various water authorities across the United Kingdom are included in pages viii and ix. The Hydrometric Area numbers used in this volume are those in use at the date of printing, and are not necessarily those in use in 1978. Data 12. Rainfall data are still published in strict numerical order of Rainfall Station Number. The 1974/75 reorganization of the water authorities cut across the hydrologically determined station numbering system adopted by the Meteorological Office in 1961 and to maintain the publication of data in numerical order it has been necessary in some instances to subdivide water authority headings into Part 1, Part 2, and so on. IV 13. The unit of rainfall amount that is used is the millimetre (mm). Monthly and annual totals are the summation of daily and monthly totals in that unit. If for any station or any period the unit of measurement was the inch, the daily data have been converted to millimetres prior to totalling. 14. The data from each station have been subjected to the routine quality-control procedure in operation by the Meteorological Office at the time of data receipt. Any corrections or adjust­ ments have been incorporated in the figures now presented. 15. Certain practices operating during the period of publication of British Rainfall have been kept, namely the retention in archives of all data as originally submitted, and the omission from the published information of data from stations which appear too unrepresentative of the rainfall regime indicated by the bulk of rainfall stations in the area. 16. The present publication continues the practice commenced with the first new paper-back edition, that for 1969, in that reports from stations from which data for the year are incomplete are included. Some stations opened or closed during the year and for others a local shift of site occurred which is thought to have been sufficient to raise doubts about the homogeneity of the old and new observations. New rainfall station numbers have been allocated in the latter instance. 17. When data are missing in a random manner from the Meteorological Office data set for 1978, then the station in question will not, in general, be included in the lists of published data. In a certain limited number of cases, missing monthly totals are estimated and such estimated values are shown in the table by brackets around the totals. Where totals have been subject to some amendment during the quality-control process, this too is indicated by the presence of brackets around the rainfall totals.