2012 was second wettest year in UK (From Daily Echo)

2012 was second wettest year in UK

1:40pm Thursday 3rd January 2013 in News By Echo Reporter

LAST year was the second wettest year across the UK in records dating back more than a century to 1910, the Met Office revealed today.

Total rainfall for 2012 was just a few millimetres shy of the record set in 2000, the figures showed.

Persistent wet weather which saw a number of records broken led to a total rainfall for the UK for the year of 1,330.7mm (52.4 inches), just 6.6mm (0.26 inches) short of the figure for 2000.

It was the wettest year on record for England and the third wettest for Wales, but Scotland experienced only its 17th wettest year and in Northern Ireland it was the 40th wettest.

The Met Office also said there had been a high frequency of wet years since 2000, with four of the five wettest years on record occurring since the beginning of this century.