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There's a well-known claim that weather is particularly rainy in England.

In the UK, a country known for its bad weather and lack of sunshine, there appears to be an ever increasing number of very tanned young people.

—Sunbeds

Is it true that there are more rainy days in England with respect to the rest of Europe? What about with the rest of the (populated) world?

Sklivvz
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    This might help for my fellow Australians: [rain](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rain). I had to look it up. :-p – Oddthinking May 08 '12 at 08:25
  • @Oddthinking You know we get rain down here! The difference is that it stops, and that we know the sky is blue because the sky isn't forever blanketed in cloud. – John Lyon May 08 '12 at 09:37
  • @jozzas I suppose this is really a question for English.SE, but is rain still the right term when it falls from the ground to the clouds? – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight May 08 '12 at 12:52
  • South england is currently experiencing drought and water companies have banned use of hosepipes and sprinklers to save water. But April 2012 was the wettest April ever recorded in english records. Does that make it bad? No, it just means there is a lot of it. – matt_black May 08 '12 at 22:26
  • Are you asking about [England, Great Britain, or the UK](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNu8XDBSn10)? – TRiG Nov 20 '12 at 01:43
  • Britain has had a reputation for cold, wet weather ever since travelers from the sunny Mediterranean first visited it in ancient times. Even writers who lived in Britain all their lives and didn't have any personal experience of other climates, like Gildas and Bede, described Britain as a cold, wet island in the north, at the edge of the civilized world (or beyond it), because that was the accepted stereotype about British weather. This partially true idea is over two thousands years old. –  Mar 22 '13 at 22:39
  • @Oddthinking: you know, as an Aussie who recently moved to England, I've been pleasantly surprised by the climate. It's nowhere near as bad as I expected. Insert comment about whinging poms here. The way the sky is coloured grey is a bit odd though, maybe Rayleigh scattering works differently at these latitudes? – Jivlain Mar 23 '13 at 05:19
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    most of those tanned young people are probably immigrants from (former) colonies and their descendants... – jwenting Mar 25 '13 at 07:24

3 Answers3

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There are mixed claims in the question, "lack of sunshine" does not mean "above average rainfall" nor "more rainy days". It means more days with significant cloud coverage (some of which may be rainy).

As you can see on below map, insolation (average sunshine energy received) of UK is significantly lower than rest of Europe. enter image description here

There are two factors determining insolation, weather and latitude. Since insolation of UK is much lower than of other European countries at same latitude, and similar to countries much farther north, only factor responsible for that difference can be bad (cloudy) weather.

vartec
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    Actually, the insolation looks very comparable between (the East of) England and other countries of the same latitude. – Konrad Rudolph May 08 '12 at 12:01
  • @KonradRudolph I agree. London looks to be in the same situation as Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen or Brussels. But you never really hear about the poor weather in those areas. – Kris Harper May 08 '12 at 12:45
  • @KonradRudolph that's only true for the southern part. Once you get a bit north of London England's consistently a darker color than places to its east. – Dan Is Fiddling By Firelight May 08 '12 at 12:54
  • @KonradRudolph: Only the southernmost part of England. But England extends to more than half of GB, northernmost part of England is at same insolation level as northern Norway, rather than like southern Denmark or southern Lithuania . – vartec May 08 '12 at 14:30
  • @root45: Benelux is not known for particularly great weather either. In fact it's total crap :-P A part of NL climate description **"Rainfall is prevalent all year."** – vartec May 08 '12 at 14:32
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It depends on where you are in the UK.

It rains more frequently in Western areas of the UK than in the east

UK - Days of Rain

(source - Met Office)

This map gives a European-wide comparison of annual rainfall.

Europe - average annual rainfall

(source - European Environment Agency)

Edit - here's a map of the annual rainfall for North America.

North America - average annual rainfall

(source - CEC)

Tom77
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Raninfall varies greatly in the UK, depending on the region. The map below illustrates this point better than words. It is interesting to note that London is actually in one of the driest regions of UK.

enter image description here

[ source ]

Quantity of yearly rainfall (mm) in various cities

As you can see from the above, you might be hard-pressed to find a city with less rainfall than London, although other regions ( the mountainous north-west ) do have high rainfall amounts.

Mihai Rotaru
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    Aha, but I am more interested in the number of rainy days, not in the amount of water that falls... – Sklivvz May 08 '12 at 11:01