Six of the UK’s ten wettest years on record have occurred since 1998. The amount of rain from extremely wet days rose by 17 per cent between the periods 1961-90 and 2008-17.
Scientists generally agree that winters will become wetter as global warming increases but they are less sure about whether there has been a significant increase in flooding in the UK.
Hannah Cloke, professor of hydrology at the University of Reading, said: “Floods are certainly getting worse. This is because we have changed the environment to put ourselves in harm’s way by building on floodplains and at-risk coastlines.”
A Met Office study in 2015 found that an extended period of extreme winter rainfall in the UK — similar to that in the winter of
