Huncoat is a small historic village near Accrington situated on the slopes of the Pennines below the 1,340 feet high Great Hameldon and some 30 miles inland so consequently it receives quite high annual rainfall totals of which fortunately there are continuous records going back over 136 years.

The earliest known record of rainfall in Britain was kept by Richard Towneley between 1677 and 1703 at Towneley Hall, Burnley, which is just 5 miles east of Huncoat. He placed a funnel on the roof connected to a tube leading down to his study window.

Comprehensive records began in 1727 but it was not until 1860 that George James Symons first began systematic collection of data from all over the country subsequently published annually in books entitled "British Rainfall".
Symons took an interest in rainfall after the drought years of 1854-58 and left his job to take up a post with the Royal Meteorological Society.

Huncoat was included in the "British Rainfall" series from 1875 with readings taken at Burnley Road Reservoirs.
Unfortunately, that station ceased operation in 1982 but from 1961 readings had also been reported from the nearby Mitchell's House Reservoir at the head of Warmden Clough and those continue to this day. Rainfall was recorded in Oak Hill Park, Accrington from 1939 until 1961. At Burnley Road Cemetery from 1985 until 1997, at Coppy Clough Sewage works Church from 1947 to 1973 and at Jackhouse Reservoir Oswaldtwistle from 1870 to 1881 and 1966 to 1982.

Sadly, the Meteorological Office discontinued the publication of Rainfall Books after 1991 on economic grounds but the local water authorities continue to measure and report rainfall amounts to the Environment Agency and Meteorological Office and the data eventually gets into the Library and Archive at Exeter.

The modern rainfall recording network is governed by the Met Office who inspect the sites once every three years to make sure each site conforms to the required standards and is producing good data. The Environment Agency maintains a network of tipping bucket rainguages to supply information of relevance to flood defences and bathing water quality.

In the early 1970's John, David, Martin and Roy began measuring rainfall in Accrington and from 1992 Roy has done so at Sutton Crescent in Huncoat. In 2003 Jim joined the club taking readings in Oswaldtwistle and in 2005 David moved his station to Oswaldtwistle. Mitchell's House Reservoir is 980 feet above sea level just south west of Great Hameldon and less than 2 miles away from Huncoat village. The "Huncoat Data" therefore all comes from within a two mile radius.

Most of the readings taken over the years at all the above sites are very consistent and comparable so there is much confidence that we have an accurate picture of local rainfall patterns and extremes. Moreover, rainfall was recorded at Stonyhurst College (7 miles to the NW) for 100 years and that data too is incredibly similar.

The 136 year average for Huncoat is 47.00 inches (1,194 millimetres).
Over the long term this has not changed since records began so does not indicate that our climate is getting any wetter.

The wettest ten year average was 53.39 inches (1,356 millimetres) between 1922 and 1931.
The driest ten year average was 40.42 inches (1,027 millimetres) between 1892 and 1901.

The wettest year on record was 1981 with 67.05 inches (1,703 millimetres) at Mitchell's House Reservoir.
Roy's wettest year was 2000 with 67.54 inches (1,716 millimetres) at Sutton Crescent.

The driest year on record was 1887 with 28.62 inches (727 millimetres) at Burnley Road Reservoir.
Roy's driest was 1995 with 33.66 inches (855 millimetres) at Sutton Crescent.

The wettest place in Britain depends on how the statistics are interpreted.
The highest annual totals have all been at Sprinkling Tarn in the Lake District with 257.00 inches (6,528 millimetres) in 1954 and 247.00 inches (6,274 millimetres) in 2000 but the highest average yearly fall is on Crib Goch mountain in Snowdonia Wales which gets 171.68 inches (4,361 millimetres) compared to the Lake District's average of 170.22 (4,324 millimetres). The highest annual total in Wales was 237.00 inches (6,020 millimetres) in 1908 at Llyn Lydaw, Snowdonia.

In Scotland the highest annual totals have been 240.00 inches (6,096 millimetres) at Ben Nevis Observatory in 1898 and 213.00 inches (5,410 millimetres) at Loch Quoich Knoydart in 1938. The highest annual average for Scotland is 145.71 (3,701 millimetres) inches at Beinn Ime mountain, Loch Sloy near Loch Lomond.

Heavy rain and flash floods can occur anywhere in the country but these are usually caused by lesser rainfall amounts that happen to be very localised by topography, briefly intense like a thunderstorm or exacerbated by blocked drains, dammed water courses or compromised flood plains.
For example before the Boscastle flood on 17th August 2004, 7.89 inches (200 millimetres) fell in 24 hours on the Cornish uplands and Carlisle was submerged on 8th January 2005 because of 8.85 inches (225 millimetres) in 72 hours over the Shap Mountains and 4.53 inches (115 millimetres) in 24 hours at Keswick.

The wettest days ever recorded in England were -
11.00 inches (279mm) at Martinstown in Dorset on 18th July 1955.
9.56 inches (243 millimetres) at Bruton, Somerset on 28th June 1917.
9.50 inches (241 millimetres) at Upwey, Dorset on 18th July 1955.
8.50 inches (216 millimetres) at Seathwaite in the Lake District on 12th November 1897.

The wettest days ever recorded in the Huncoat area were -
4.10 inches (104mm) at Jackhouse Reservoir on 20th September 1968.
3.31 inches (84mm) at Burnley Road Reservoir on 20th September 1968.
3.07 inches (78mm) at Mitchell's House Reservoir on 18th July 1964,
(which caused disastrous floods throughout Hyndburn during the local holidays).
2.59 inches (66mm) at Huncoat on 1st October 1999.

Droughts
The longest local drought in living memory was an Absolute Drought of 33 days in February and March 1953. July and August of the same year also had a Dry spell of 17 days.

More recent droughts have been-
March and April 1974 - Dry for 22 days
April 1974 - Dry for 19 days
August 1976 - Absolute for 20 days
May and June 1977 - Absolute for 20 days
April and May 1995 - Absolute for 18 days
September 1996 - Dry for 16 days
May and June 1997 - Absolute for 15 days
March 2003 - Dry for 19 days
April 2003 - Absolute for 18 days.

An “Absolute Drought” is when there is a period of 15 consecutive days without measurable rainfall (less than 0.01 inches per day) although if there are 29 consecutive days where the average daily rainfall does not exceed 0.01 inches then that is a “Partial Drought.” If there are 15 consecutive days on each of which there is less than 0.04 inches then that is defined as a “Dry Spell.”