We are within a gnat's crotchet of recording the driest November ever in Essex. My brother tells me that the Essex Water Co record is 13.6mm in 1978. His figure currently stands at 10.8mm, ours at 7.4mm for the month. We live about 15 miles apart.
There is no more rain forecast for November, but at present the Met Office are predicting about 3 hours of rain from midnight on Wednesday 1st December. Since the official cut-off point is 9am the following day, that could easily take us over 13.6mm.
My weather station recorded a mere 7.8mm for November. My manual rain gauge recorded 9.3mm. My brother in Ramsden Heath recorded 11.9mm. The rain forecast for early this morning failed to materialise, but it's raining here now.
7.8mm? We got more than that just last night...
Yep.
http://tickfield.thewalkers.org.uk/weewx/tabular.html?report=NOAA/NOAA-2021-11.txt refers.
Unfortunately, when I bought the weather station 11 years ago, I elevated it to roof level on our single-storey extension. That means that I have to go up a ladder if it needs attention, and every so often, the rain gauge gets blocked. Invariably, this happens on a day of heavy rain, so October's figures were buggered by a dead moth in the hole. But I'm quite confident in that 7.8mm reading. My sister, who lives a couple of hundred yards away, recorded 8mm, and my manual rain gauge, on a post about 3 feet above ground level, recorded 9.3mm. Because of the design of that rain gauge, a heavy dew and condensation can deposit measurable precipitation in the tube, and I understand that Met Office standards dictate that you should add that to your total. Generally, the manual gauge records marginally more than the automatic one, for this reason.