Updated: 2026-07-31
16 days of consecutive rain — that is the record wet spell in Leeds, measured at the city's Met Office station. It ran from 2 December to 17 December 1993, when the sky did not close for over two weeks. In that stretch, the station collected 68.3 mm of precipitation, a figure that defines the city's most relentless rainy period on record.
Longest consecutive rainy days in Leeds since the station began operation.
If you live in Leeds, you know the city's rain is rarely violent — it is persistent. The record wet spell that began on 2 December 1993 was not a series of storms. It was a long, grey, drizzling siege that lasted exactly 16 days, ending on 17 December. No dry day interrupted it. The Met Office's MIDAS archive, which holds daily precipitation readings for the station, shows that every single one of those days recorded more than zero millimetres.
The total for that stretch, 68.3 mm, is not the heaviest rainfall total for a single event in Leeds — but that was never the point. What makes this run exceptional is its duration. The rain did not need to be torrential to set the record; it only needed to never stop. And it did not.
December in Leeds averages more rainy days than any other month, but even by December standards, a 16-day run stands out. The city's weather station has been recording daily precipitation since the late 19th century, and no wet spell since 1993 has come close to matching it. The streak from 2 to 17 December 1993 remains unbeaten — a benchmark that has now stood for more than three decades.
To put it in perspective: a wet spell of 10 days would already feel interminable — in Leeds, that length has occurred in January. An 11-day run has happened in April. But 16 days is the ceiling — reached only once, in the winter of 1993, when the city endured more than two full weeks of daily rain.
Breaking the record down by month reveals a clear seasonal pattern. The longest wet spells of the year cluster in the cold months, though spring and autumn are not immune. The table below shows the maximum consecutive rainy-day streak ever recorded in Leeds for each calendar month, based on the full Met Office MIDAS daily series.
| Month | Longest Wet Spell (days) |
|---|---|
| January | 10 |
| February | 16 |
| March | 7 |
| April | 11 |
| May | 16 |
| June | 12 |
| July | 6 |
| August | 7 |
| September | 13 |
| October | 13 |
| November | 14 |
| December | 16 |
A few things jump out from the monthly breakdown. February and May have both produced 16-day wet spells — the same length as the all-time record. That means the record is not a winter-only phenomenon: a late-spring run in May matched the December 1993 mark. December, however, is the only month where the record holds with the specific dates of 2–17 December 1993.
July is the driest month in this league table, with a longest wet spell of just 6 days. August is barely better at 7 days. If you are planning an outdoor event in Leeds and want to avoid a prolonged rainy stretch, midsummer is your best bet — the city has never recorded more than a week of consecutive rain in those two months.
Autumn shows its staying power too: November has reached 14 days, while September and October have both hit 13 days. Even April, a month many associate with showers, has produced an 11-day rainy run.
The December 1993 record was more than a statistic. Sixteen consecutive days of rain means two full weekends without a dry day — no break for washing, no clear evening for a walk, no morning without wet streets. The 68.3 mm that fell across those 16 days was distributed as a persistent, low-intensity drizzle typical of Leeds winters, rather than a single downpour.
For comparison, that total is meaningful precisely because it was spread so thin. Had the same 68.3 mm fallen in a single day, it would have been a notable but not extreme event. Spread over 16 days, it became an endurance test for the city.
The fact that no wet spell since December 1993 has reached 16 days tells you something about Leeds's climate. The city gets plenty of rain — but it usually comes with gaps. The infrastructure of low-pressure systems that parks over northern England for two straight weeks is rare. When it happens, it leaves a mark in the record books.
That 1993 run is the answer to the question: the longest wet spell ever in Leeds is 16 consecutive days, from 2 to 17 December 1993, with 68.3 mm of accumulated rain. It is a benchmark that has survived over 30 years of Leeds weather — and judging by the monthly data, one that could theoretically be matched in February or May, but never beaten since that December.
Source: Met Office MIDAS daily precipitation data, Leeds station. Period analysed: full station record from the MIDAS archive, consolidated by histoclima.com.
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