According to recent reports by Oxford University researchers, March 2023 has broken records as the wettest March since the Radcliffe Meteorological Station began

recording rainfall in January 1827. The month saw 133.9mm of rain, with rainfall recorded on 27 of the 31 days. The unusual wet weather has been attributed to a sudden stratospheric warming (SSW) event that shifted the jet stream further south, bringing in multiple strong Atlantic low-pressure systems to the UK.

This caused a higher than average rainfall for the month, with six days experiencing over 10mm of rain. Sophie Harbord, a doctoral researcher at the School of Geography and the Environment, commented that the high rainfall was also noticeable due to February being drier than usual, with only 7.6mm recorded at the Radcliffe Meteorological Station.

The Radcliffe Meteorological Station, which is based at Oxford's Green Templeton College, records a range of meteorological variables such as min, max, and mean air temperature, humidity, rainfall, soil temperatures, sunshine hours, wind speed, fog, snow, and visibility.

The station has been maintained by the School of Geography and the Environment and provides invaluable data on how the UK climate has changed over time, including the impacts of anthropogenic climate change. The data collected is used by the Met Office and is also publicly available for viewing on https://wow.metoffice.gov.uk/. Photo by ceridwen / Radcliffe Observatory, top floor/CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia commons.