A month's worth of rain in a day?

Abstract

Abstract Phrases like ‘a month’s worth of rain in a day’ make for dramatic news headlines. But how often do such events occur? Are they more likely in certain locations or seasons? And can we expect more in the future? Here we examine these questions for the UK using observations and high‐resolution model simulations. We find that almost all such events occur in summer in regions with the smallest monthly rainfall climatology and that future projections exhibit substantial increases in frequency due to a simultaneous intensification of extreme rainfall events coupled with a marked drying of UK summers.