# England's 2026 drought: one of the wettest winters, then one of the driest summers in 190 years of rainfall records From October 2025 to March 2026, 615 mm of rain fell on England, the 6th wettest winter of 190 years. From April to September only 241 mm fell: the 4th driest summer. None of the 189 earlier years had a wetter winter followed by a drier summer. - **6**: Winter 2025–26 (October–March): 615 mm, the 6th wettest of 190 - **4**: Summer 2026 (April–September): 241 mm, the 4th driest of 190 - **0**: Years among the 189 earlier ones with a wetter winter and a drier summer than 2026 > Over the 12 months, rainfall was close to average: 856 mm against 828 mm. It fell mostly in winter, and a wet winter said nothing about the summer. ## Winter and summer ### Each dot is one year Across: the rain that fell on England from October to March. Up: the rain from the following April to September. There are 190 dots, from winter 1836–37 and summer 1837 to winter 2025–26 and summer 2026. The averages are 446 mm in winter and 382 mm in summer. The dashed lines mark them. ### A wet winter does not promise a wet summer The cloud of dots has no slope: the correlation between winter rain and the following summer's rain is −0.01 (95% interval −0.15 to +0.13). Between winter and the following summer there is no measurable linear relationship in this record. Of the 64 winters in the wettest third, 22 were followed by a summer in the driest third. Of the 63 winters in the driest third, also 22. The 20 wettest winters were followed by summers ranked from 4th to 174th in rising order of rain, from one of the driest to one of the wettest. ### 2026 stands alone in the corner Winter 2025–26 had 615 mm, 38% above average. Summer 2026 had 241 mm, 37% below average. The bottom right corner, with more winter rain and less summer rain than 2026, holds no other year. If winters and summers combined at random, we would expect 0.08 years other than 2026 with a wetter winter and a drier summer (5 wetter winters × 3 drier summers, out of 189 years), a chance of about 8% that at least one exists. We picked the corner after seeing the data, so that percentage understates how easily some other unusual corner could have been found. ## July 2026: 6.5 mm, the driest July of 191 January and February were wet (124.2 and 112.5 mm, against 83.0 and 66.1 mm on average). From March every month had less than average, except June, which was close to it. July had 6.5 mm. The next driest July, in 1911, had 13.4 mm, about twice as much. In the south-east, July 2026 had 0.7 mm. The official release of 4 September also says July 2026 was the driest July in 190 years. Taken together, the 12 months from October to September brought 856 mm. The 190-year average is 828 mm, and 117 of the 189 earlier years had less. A year with a near-average total can still have a dry summer if the rain falls in winter. ## Winters have become wetter, summers have stayed the same Winters in 1992–2026 brought 58 mm more on average than winters in 1837–1991 (95% interval +23 to +92 mm). 1992 is the year the British government says the last new reservoir was delivered. Summers brought the same: +1 mm, with an interval from −28 to +31 mm that includes zero. These are two long-period averages, not a trend tested across the whole record. Over the same period the population of England grew by 22.1%, from 47,998,000 to 58,607,200 people. Headcount does not measure water use, and rainfall does not measure available water; the two numbers sit side by side only as an order of magnitude. ## The south-east: the same pattern, sharper In the Met Office region “England SE and Central S” (south-east and central-south England), winter 2025–26 had 585 mm, rank 18 wettest of 190. Summer 2026 had 179 mm, rank 2 driest of 190; July had 0.7 mm. The correlation between winter and the following summer is −0.01 (−0.15 to +0.14). Here too no other year had a wetter winter and a drier summer. We picked this region before computing ranks: it is where the hosepipe bans were concentrated, and we tried no other. ## What this means for the water from the tap Winter rain does not announce the summer. The water that is missing in August comes from what was kept from winter, in reservoirs, in soil and in groundwater. The 4 September release says a sustained period of rain is needed to replenish soil water before groundwater recharge can begin, and the Environment Agency's Director of Water says groundwater and reservoir levels will keep falling and take many months to recover. The British government says no new reservoir has been delivered since 1992. The rainfall data on this page do not show how full each reservoir was in March, how much water leaked from pipes, or how much demand rose in the heat. They cannot say whether more reservoirs would have been enough. They show only that summer 2026 could not have been predicted from the rain of winter 2025–26. **The official position on 4 September 2026** - Reservoir storage was 58%, a fall of 1.8% in a week and 19.2% below the long-term average for the time of year. - 71.3% of England was in drought and over 30 million people were under water-use restrictions. - There have been three droughts in five years: 2022, 2025 and 2026. - Summer 2026 was declared England's hottest on record. ## Method and limits **The data.** Monthly Met Office series for England and for south-east and central-south England (HadUK-Grid, from 1836), downloaded on 2026-10-02. Values for 2025 and 2026 are provisional and may change. Older series rest on fewer stations. **Winter and summer.** Winter is October to March and summer April to September, the usual halves of the hydrological year. The year 2026 means winter 2025–26 and summer 2026. The first year in the series is 1837, the first with a complete winter. **Ranks.** Rank 1 is the driest (for summers) or the wettest (for winters). Winter 2026 ranks 6 wettest of 190, summer 4 driest of 190. All ranks use the same 190 years. **The empty corner.** The combination “wetter winter and drier summer than 2026” was chosen after seeing the data; it was not tested in advance. That is why we also give the expected frequency if winters and summers combined at random: 0.08 years other than 2026, out of 189. **Uncertainty.** The correlation has a 95% interval from the Fisher transformation. Differences between periods have bootstrap intervals (5,000 resamples, years drawn independently). Consecutive years can be correlated, so the intervals are probably a little too narrow. **What is missing.** Reservoir levels in March, groundwater, demand, pipe leakage and heat are not in these data. Rainfall alone does not say how much water was available. ### Driest summers, England | Year | Preceding winter, mm | Summer, mm | Winter rank (wettest) | Summer rank (driest) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 1870 | 402.2 | 217.1 | 132 | 1 | | 1921 | 333.9 | 231.2 | 173 | 2 | | 1959 | 378.8 | 238.8 | 145 | 3 | | 2026 | 614.7 | 241.2 | 6 | 4 | | 1995 | 593.1 | 243.3 | 10 | 5 | | 1990 | 525.7 | 248.6 | 39 | 6 | | 1844 | 441.8 | 259.5 | 92 | 7 | | 2022 | 435.6 | 260.0 | 97 | 8 | ### Wettest winters, England | Year | Preceding winter, mm | Summer, mm | Winter rank (wettest) | Summer rank (driest) | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | 2024 | 726.7 | 469.2 | 1 | 166 | | 2001 | 695.6 | 398.1 | 2 | 115 | | 2014 | 653.2 | 369.1 | 3 | 83 | | 1930 | 641.0 | 461.0 | 4 | 160 | | 2020 | 639.0 | 358.1 | 5 | 72 | | 2026 | 614.7 | 241.2 | 6 | 4 | | 1912 | 601.0 | 485.9 | 7 | 174 | | 2021 | 599.6 | 362.7 | 8 | 74 | ## Sources - [Monthly rainfall in England, from 1836](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/datasets/Rainfall/date/England.txt), Met Office: Area series from HadUK-Grid (a 1 km grid built from weather stations), millimetres per month, under the Open Government Licence. The file used was updated on 1 October 2026, and values for 2025 and 2026 are provisional. - [Monthly rainfall in south-east and central-south England](https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/datasets/Rainfall/date/England_SE_and_Central_S.txt), Met Office: The same series for the Met Office region “England SE and Central S”. - [Population of England, mid-year estimates](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/timeseries/enpop/pop), Office for National Statistics: Series ENPOP: 47,998,000 people at mid-1992 and 58,607,200 at mid-2024. - [Press release of 4 September 2026](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/environment-secretary-visits-havant-thicket-reservoir-as-government-strengthens-water-resilience-amid-ongoing-drought), Defra and the Environment Agency: Reservoir storage (58%), the share of England in drought (71.3%), people under water restrictions and the statement on summer 2026. - [Government steps in to build first major reservoirs in 30 years](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-steps-in-to-build-first-major-reservoirs-in-30-years), Defra: The release of 29 May 2025, which says no new reservoirs have been delivered since 1992. --- Marius Comper. Rainfall data: Met Office, under the Open Government Licence. [mariuscomper.uk](https://mariuscomper.uk/).