Just six weeks into the new year and barely a day has passed in which we’ve not been treated to a drenching from Mother Nature. Yes, it may be the most British proclivity of all to bore on about the weather, but we really are justified in 2026 because it has been relentless.
Some areas of the UK have recorded the most rainfall since records began. With certain locations (North Wyke in Devon, Cardinham in Cornwall and Astwood Bank in Worcester), seeing rainfall every single day of the year so far.
For everyone else, the moments of respite have been few and far between.
Provisional Met Office figures for February so far on Monday show that England has already seen 59% of the average rainfall expected for the entire month, just 9 days in, while the UK as a whole has reached 89% of its average winter rainfall.
The Environment Agency has issued hundreds of flood warnings across the UK.
And no, this isn’t part of an extravagant press stunt to hail the release of Emerald Fennel’s moody Wuthering Heights, it’s actually the result of a curious combination of meteorological phenomena.
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The perpetrator of this unyielding dampness?, An unusually southerly jet stream which has driven inclement weather towards the UK.
The jet stream is powerful easterly channel of strong winds several miles above the Earth’s surface. This year, it has been worsened and pushed south by cold snaps in the US (where bitterly cold temperatures have swept the nation). This has driven low-pressure systems towards the UK, increasing wet weather fronts and storms.
Alongside this, there has been an unusual ‘blocked’ weather pattern which has prevented the jet stream from shifting positions. Essentially, explains the Met Office, high pressure is stuck over Scandanavia, while low-pressure systems “continue to approach from the southwest”. The impact of this combination is what we have been living: long stretches of uninspiring grey skies and wet weather.
“This blocking high has also prevented the weather fronts pushing through and clearing the UK. Instead they have been stalling over the UK, leading to persistent slow moving bands of rain,” explains the Met Office.
Imagine, if you will, an ex who simply will not let us move on.
And the good news keeps on coming. Meteorologists have confirmed that there is “no end in sight” to these inclement climes because it can take a while to reset the pattern. Essentially, the Met Office says, “the jet stream tends to follow the path of least resistance, and recently that path has been directly over the UK."
Harriet Hall is an award-winning journalist and the Features Director at Cosmopolitan. Most recently she was awarded Best Feature for her investigation into Andrew Tate and online misogyny at the 2023 Write to End Violence Against Women awards and the BSME for Best Lifestyle Journalist in 2022 for her work covering women’s safety, women's health, politics and pop culture. As a journalist of over a decade, her work has seen her interview celebrities from Zendaya to Zac Effron and politicians including Jeremy Corbyn (just five days before the 2017 general election); report on fashion weeks and take on stunts in the name of feminism. She has written for a range of publications including The Independent where she ran the lifestyle desk for four years, Evening Standard, Vogue, BBC News and Stylist. Harriet also regularly appears across numerous platforms to discuss her work, from Sky News to Radio 4 Woman’s Hour and on panels such as at the prestigious Woman of the World Festival. Her first book ‘She: A Celebration of 100 Renegade Women’ was published by Headline Home in 2018 and you can find her Tweeting, Instagramming and on Linkedin when she isn’t curled up on the sofa with a good book and the smallest dog in the world.
