{"id":425266,"date":"2026-02-14T11:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/425266\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T11:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:16:08","slug":"seasons-have-become-confused-the-people-struggling-in-uks-relentless-rain-uk-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/425266\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Seasons have become confused\u2019: the people struggling in UK\u2019s relentless rain | UK weather"},"content":{"rendered":"

With 76 flood warnings still in force across the UK<\/a> and further downpours forecast this week and next, parts of the country have endured rain almost without pause since the start of the year.<\/p>\n

The prolonged wet weather is disrupting livelihoods as well as daily life, particularly in rural areas, where flooded roads, waterlogged ground and repeated storms are making it harder to keep businesses afloat, protect crops and maintain steady work.<\/p>\n

Here, people share how the relentless rain and bad weather is affecting them and their businesses.<\/p>\n

\u2018You\u2019re sitting in your truck doing nothing while the rain pours\u2019<\/p>\n

In north Devon<\/a>, Mark Harrington, a master thatcher, has been inundated with calls from customers with leaking roofs in recent months. \u201cThis is silly season for us thatchers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Harrington, 61, has been fixing thatched roofs for 30 years. \u201cI do understand that you\u2019re going to get some rain in winter, but it has definitely got worse. Even if you do manage to work for a day, it\u2019s punctuated by periods of an hour and a half of rain where you\u2019re sitting in your truck doing nothing. Before, I used to think, a day off, that\u2019s great. But now you think, oh, jeez, not another day off!\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark\u2019s Harrington\u2019s team working in the rain on 15 January 2026. Photograph: Guardian Community<\/p>\n

The delays have financial consequences for Harrington. \u201cI am haemorrhaging money at the moment just trying to cope with the delays,\u201d he says. \u201cJobs are taking longer, customers are unwilling to pay for extra scaffolding to over-roof their property, and the lads who work with me \u2013 who I have spent time and money on over the years training \u2013 are grumbling that they need to find work indoors. I\u2019m earning a minimal wage myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harrington used to be able to pay his employees half a day\u2019s wages when their work was rained off, but not any more. \u201cI\u2019d run out of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

The weather\u2019s impact on his materials, such as wheat, adds further pressure. \u201cIf wheat seeds lay on wet ground for an extended period of time, they don\u2019t germinate and this will affect availability. We had a disastrous crop two years ago and are still suffering from the after-effects of the shortage.\u201d Shortages mean the crop becomes more expensive, leading to higher costs for customers.<\/p>\n

Mark Harrington, a master thatcher: \u2018Even if you do manage to work for a day, it\u2019s punctuated by periods of an hour and a half of rain.\u2019 Photograph: Guardian Community<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a skilled tradesman such as myself is unable to maintain a team or even work as much as is required, then I fear for the future,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m concerned that what we\u2019ve seen so far is only the beginning of a long drawn out disaster\u2019<\/p>\n

On a hill near Helston in Cornwall<\/a>, John, 83, says it is the relentlessness of the rain that is doing the damage. This year alone he and his wife, Vicki, 73, have lost 15 trees \u2013 many of them pines they planted nearly 40 years ago to provide shelter for their plant nursery as well as for \u201csheer beauty\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I see is a combination of results from the increased numbers of storms and continuous rainfall,\u201d he says. \u201cThe ground gets very soggy, and the trees hold less well in it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s such a shame to see a tree you planted lying on its side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Living on a hill offers some protection from flooding, but the surrounding lanes have been submerged, at times with water three-quarters of the way up car wheels. Heavy rain has also worsened potholes, turning what was once a straightforward seven-mile drive into Helston into an obstacle course. \u201cThe time I take to do that same drive is pretty well doubled, because I\u2019m dodging potholes and having to keep my speed right down,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

One of the 15 trees that have fallen over on John and Vicki\u2019s land this year. Photograph: Vicki and John<\/p>\n

The worsening weather has caused other problems. Vicki, who runs the plant nursery, says the increasingly unstable weather has made small-scale growing far more difficult.<\/p>\n

Even on a south-facing slope high on a hill, the ground is \u201ctotally soggy and waterlogged\u201d, with standing water lingering after heavy rain. \u201cFlood water is really irritating \u2013 slopping around in mud everywhere and trying to keep drains clear,\u201d she says. But it is the combination of saturated ground and increasingly violent winds that has proved most damaging.<\/p>\n

Vicki, who specialises in old-fashioned fragrant and historic roses, along with culinary and aromatic herbs, has decided to scale back operations. The latest bad weather brought three storms in quick succession. \u201cStorm Goretti,\u201d she says, \u201cblew my last remaining polytunnel cover off.\u201d Looking across the site, she adds: \u201cIt\u2019s very hard to come back from that. It takes a lot of work to build up stock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThirty or 40 years ago, it was fine. There\u2019s no way I would contemplate polytunnels on top of a hill now. The climate has changed so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

John predicts the worst is yet to come. \u201cAs global heating progresses there is a likelihood that we will have structural damage to buildings as well as trees. I\u2019m concerned that what we\u2019ve seen so far is only the beginning of a long drawn out disaster,\u201d he says. \u201cSome mornings we wake up and because it\u2019s so misty and dank, it feels like the start of a third-rate historian novel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The relentless rain hasn\u2019t just affected those working in rural areas.<\/p>\n

\u2018I worked in gardens where half the plants were dying last summer, and now they\u2019re all soaked\u2019Connor Law, a gardener in London: \u2018I worked in gardens where half the plants were dying last summer, and now they\u2019re all soaked.\u2019 Photograph: Guardian Community<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been hard to work with this much rain,\u201d says Connor Law, a gardener in London<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t mind working through a shower or two but when it\u2019s so consistently wet, you can end up accidentally disturbing plants. So jobs get pushed further and further back. I\u2019m self-employed, so it\u2019s going to start making money a bit tight if it carries on for too long.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law, 33, has worked outdoors for the past 10 years and has noticed changes in the weather becoming increasingly extreme. \u201cI worked in gardens where half the plants were dying last summer, and now they\u2019re all soaked. Especially here in London, seasons have become confused. I saw spring bulbs flowering in December,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorking as a gardener, you see it first-hand every day. [Parts of the UK] only recently came out of an official drought<\/a> due to how dry last year was. It wasn\u2019t really that noticeable unless you\u2019re working in the gardens. [But] droughts followed by flooding are becoming increasingly common.\u201d<\/p>\n

Law says people will have to change their approach to their gardens. \u201cWe can\u2019t do what we\u2019ve traditionally done for the last couple of hundred years. They\u2019re going to have to look a bit different. I\u2019ve always told people to grow wetland plants; if you\u2019ve got an area garden that keeps flooding, try and embrace it and encourage frogs and insects to move in.<\/p>\n

Conditions in London may be milder than other parts of the country at the moment, but the climate is still a concern, Law says. \u201cThe rain isn\u2019t causing danger to people\u2019s lives like in other parts of the country \u2013 I have family in Wales and the south-west where it\u2019s more hairy.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in terms of the health of the natural environment, people\u2019s gardens are really important for biodiversity, insects and carbon capture. And if things in your garden are constantly dying because the conditions have changed, we\u2019re going to lose that resource.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With 76 flood warnings still in force across the UK and further downpours forecast this week and next,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-425266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}