Year gets off to wet start

The soggy start to 2013 saw a deluge of 114m hit the town on 25 of the month’s 31 days.

This compared to just 22.2mm a year ago.

The wettest day was the 12th with 17mm of rain. The seemingly-constant cloudy skies meant little sunshine.

There was just 46.1 hours in total compared to 77.6 hours a year earlier. The sunniest day was New Year’s Day with seven hours.

Dorothy Rodefeld, one of the town council’s weather station volunteers, said: “January was predominantly overcast and cloudy with some mist and drizzle with little sunshine, which was roughly one-third less than the average for the month.”