Feature
It turns out Manchester isn’t the rainiest city in the UK
I bet it’s raining as you read this, though…
It turns out that Manchester isn’t the rainiest city in the UK – it isn’t even in the top 10.
It’s been a long-standing joke that it always rains in Manchester. Alongside football, music and Emmeline Pankhurst, rainfall might just be what the city is best known for across the world.
In fact, if you search the words ‘Manchester rain’ on Google you’ll find yourself bombarded with 68 million results with thousands of variations of ‘is Manchester the rainiest city in the UK?’ and ‘will it rain in Manchester?’
Plus there’s a real niche suggestion that asks ‘is Manchester better than London?’ – I think we all know the answer to that one.
If you can cast your mind back to February – a time actually pre-lockdown – it was the wettest month ever on record. There was so much rain the Met Office had to create a new scale to be able to create their fancy maps.
Last month even saw record-breaking rainfall in Greater Manchester.
Despite all this, ‘it always rains in Manchester’ is actually a complete myth and I’m here to prove it to you.
The most recent data shows that Manchester came in 14th place, joint with Salford, in the ‘UK Rainy City League Table’, nowhere near the top spot.
Analysis of rainfall figures between 1981 and 2015 show that there was an average of 867mm of rainfall per year. This is actually 18mm less than the national average of 885mm of precipitation.
In that same period, Manchester was beaten in the rainfall table by Cardiff (1,152mm), Glasgow (1,124mm), Leeds (1,024mm), Plymouth (1,007mm) and Belfast (944mm).
Mostly, the rainfall in those places (excluding Leeds) can be attributed to their westerly location and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. The Pennines have something to answer for too, when it comes to Manchester’s rain levels.
We’re not the wettest place or the rainiest so why do we have this reputation?
Honestly, I’ve no idea but the science proves it completely wrong. So the next time someone tries to shun Manchester for being ‘rainy’, tell them when they can shove it.
Despite all this, the UK’s winters are getting wetter and stormier in recent decades. One study concluded that ‘we will see unprecedented winter rainfall within the UK in the next few years’. Yikes.
Climate change is real guys – recycle and don’t forget your umbrella on your next trip to town, because despite Manchester not being the rainiest city, it’ll probably still be raining…