Standardised UK rainfall data, putting winter 2013/2014 into context

This is a major work started during January. Results for the 17 Met Office areal time series from 1910 are presented standardised and ranked.

The only region of the 17 with remarkable rainfall was the data combination South East and Central Southern England with a Z-score of +3.2 based on de-annualised.

The primary plots and presentation is in PDF format where zoom can be used. Here is the file (2MB)

The objective was if possible Standardising the data with the intention of

• revealing any data structure
• allowing better regional comparison
• producing a statistical measure for both dry and wet periods in spite of the wet/dry process being effectively non-linear, it does not rain dryness

The result is successful. A noise signal with no obvious structure appears. In common language it is called weather.

A calculation of Return Period for the most affected 2013 / 2014 area via GEV software gives a figure of 33 years. GEV is a huge subject where results need a contextual interpretation. See ref2

Part 1, Central England Temperature timeseries and Manley papers

This large article was composed some time ago, last edit Oct 2013 it seems but left unpublished, one of dozens.

There is a disturbing story behind the current CET dataset as will be revealed in Part 2. The above plot sets the scene, a straight illustration of the whole dataset with timeline.

This blog article is intended as a backgrounder covering a variety of information including links to official copies of the two historic Manley papers which are the basis of the CET dataset. In my opinion CET is misrepresented as more instrument based than it is in reality. More reasonably it is an expert opinion on weather.

---

The Met Office CET web page[1] mentions the whole data then plays pea and thimble silently showing a plot of the later subset. Reason to be revealed in part 2.