2022 SPRING RAINFALL COMPARISON FOR NORFOLK, SUFFOLK & EAST ANGLIA 

Group Member	Pauline Roberts	Roy Mellor	Graham Allison	David King	Terry Read	Peter George	Met. Office  Averages
Site                 Month	Wendling Norfolk	Norwich Norfolk	Thorpe St Andrew Norfolk	Brooke Norfolk	Sisland Norfolk	Pakenham Suffolk	East Anglia
January	20.0 mm	27.5 mm	16.0 mm	27.5 mm	24.5 mm	23.9 mm	16.4 mm
February	57.0 mm	88.0 mm	68.0 mm	72.5 mm	62.2 mm	73.1 mm	61.2 mm
March	35.5 mm	27.0 mm	26.0 mm	33.0 mm	22.4 mm	26.1 mm	27.7 mm
April	6.0 mm	9.0 mm	6.0 mm	13.7 mm	7.2 mm	10.7 mm	12.1 mm
YTD Total  Jan – April	118.5 mm	151.5 mm	116.0 mm	146.7 mm	116.3 mm	133.8 mm	117.4 mm

A four month period of weather condition contrasts. Although the rainfall figures across our group gave pretty consistent results they were by no means normal. January rainfall was only 31% of the expected norm resulting in the first absolute drought (15 or more days without rainfall) in January, for over sixty years. February made up for the January deficit with 142% of average rainfall but March was again dry with 70% and April even dryer with just 30% of expected precipitation. 

But rainfall only tells part of the story, the dry quite frosty and very sunny January was followed by wet, fairly mild but stormy February. In the middle of the month storms Dudley, Eunice and Fredrick wreaked havoc across the land. March turned out to be one of the sunniest in years even if it did snow on the 31^st. That snow carried into a dry April of near average temperatures with only 4 to 5 frost days and more than average sunshine.

Peter George
08/05/2022