Experiencing a truly torrential downpour can sometimes feel biblical, or at least warrant the old adage “it’s raining cats and dogs.” Imagine the surprise then, when my Davis Vantage Pro2 (VP2) weather station, during an exceptionally heavy rain spell in Malvern, UK, actually flashed this very phrase: “It’s raining cats and dogs“. This unexpected message appeared on both the console display and the Weatherlink software summary page connected to my consoleless Weather Envoy. Having only installed the station in January, I’d never witnessed this before, likely due to the typically lower winter rain rates in this region.
The VP2 rain gauge recorded a peak intensity of 17.5mm/hr, followed by another surge of 14mm/hr shortly after a brief lull. At the most intense point, the gauge registered 0.2mm tips in under 30 seconds. In total, 6.4mm of rain fell in approximately 90 minutes, with the majority accumulating within a concentrated 45-minute period.
This sudden deluge is a classic sign of summer weather in Malvern. The conditions were ripe for convergence over the local hills. Relatively still and humid air, combined with a light but steady northeasterly surface wind (crucially, the hills are to the west, creating convergence as winds move towards them and gain an easterly component on my side), all hinted at building atmospheric instability. Despite a seemingly calm start with little organization in the wind direction at cloud base and no dominant synoptic wind, it was clear “summat’s up” was brewing.
Sure enough, about five minutes before the heavens opened, the atmospheric tension broke. Once the heavy rain commenced, an interesting shift occurred – the wind direction veered around to the northwest, a typical characteristic of these intense, localized summer downpours. This event served as a vivid, and somewhat humorous, reminder of just how quickly and dramatically British summer weather can turn, sometimes even prompting our weather stations to adopt colorful idioms like “it’s raining cats and dogs.”
