Rain, rain, go away

Hail in July By nickjtaylor.

The British weather doesn't often get me down, but I'm beginning to wonder if the sun still exists. It's been raining for days and days and days at this point. Wimbledon is way behind, and yesterday evening we even had ten minutes of continuous hail in west London.

The UK's Met Office has produced the usual monthly statistics (see chart), and the numbers confirm what everyone here has been thinking: it's wet.

Although yesterday's hail was extraordinary, we can't complain too much in the south. We only received twice as much rain as normal last month. By comparison, parts of northern England received 4 times their average monthly rainfall. Of course, we're all hoping August will be a scorcher.