Most people don’t like the rain. There’s even an entire nursery rhyme dedicated to it going away for good.
Yet, we imagine countless people in the UK are chanting this Rain Rain Go Away as you read this, given it’s rained every day so far this year.
The UK weather has seen so much rain that the Met Office has even extended a yellow weather warning for rain until 9pm today.
The alert covers central Wales and warns 10mm will bucket it down while a few spots could see double that.
The UK is already infamously a wet and miserable place, but will it ever stop raining?
We asked Jim NR Dale, of the independent meteorological organisation, British Weather Services, for his outlook.
‘There will be drier or even the odd dry day going forward, but for the most part, the rain continues,’ he told Metro.
Dale forecast between 40 and 100mm of rain would soak the UK by mid-February.
‘However, in Scotland and the north, from February 12, the polar vortex dislocation happens. Snow instead of rain.
‘Colder and icy weather then follows, but still with rain when it isn’t snow!’
A polar vortex is a band of high-altitude, fast-moving air that traps cold air as it circles the planet’s Arctic region.
The Met Office says that a flurry of low-pressure systems is to blame for this year’s rain.
When air pressure is low, warm air rises, making the area colder. Water vapour evaporates and forms clouds and rain.
This is also why there have been major floods this week in Spain and Portugal amid Storm Leonardo, Dale says.
The UK has already seen two storms powerful enough for weather officials to name them, Storms Ingrid and Chandra.
‘It’s what we can now expect from climate change fallouts,’ Dale adds.
Once this system drifts away, the weather should go back to ‘normal’ as the rain will ‘stop and start’ instead of constantly falling.
Dale says: ‘Really and truly, we are waiting on high pressure to get a fix over us,’ Dale adds.
‘But that’s well beyond the middle of the month and more likely the final quarter of February.’
