Updated: 2026-07-31
If you're wondering about the all-time December rainfall record for the Birmingham area, the data from the nearest official Met Office station gives a clear answer. The wettest December on record delivered 103.4 mm of precipitation in 1993. That's the highest monthly total captured since records at this location began, and it remains the benchmark for a truly sodden festive season.
The point of measurement closest to Birmingham is the Met Office station at Coton-in-the-Elms, in Derbyshire, sitting at an altitude of 85 m and roughly 32.6 km from the city centre. That station's records span from March 1991 through December 2025, giving us 35 Decembers of data to examine. The climate you experience in central Birmingham may differ somewhat from what this station registers, due to local factors like altitude, urban heat, and proximity to waterways — but this is the most reliable long-term reference we have for the area.
103.4 mm — the wettest December total ever recorded at Coton-in-the-Elms, set in 1993
That December stands head and shoulders above every other in the series. To put it in perspective, it arrived in a decade when Decembers were often wet, and it has not been beaten since. The 1993 figure tops the second-wettest December, which came in 2002 with 94.0 mm, by a margin that shows just how exceptional that month was.
Within the monthly totals, one day stands out as the absolute peak of December rainfall intensity. The highest daily precipitation recorded in any December during this period was 21.2 mm, falling on 19 December 1996. That single day's downpour came close to a quarter of the entire 1996 December total, which reached 53.5 mm for the month. It remains the most intense 24-hour period of December rain in the station's records.
Here are the five December months with the highest total precipitation, drawn from the full 1991–2025 series:
| Year | Total December precipitation (mm) |
|---|---|
| 1993 | 103.4 |
| 2002 | 94.0 |
| 1994 | 83.1 |
| 2003 | 75.6 |
| 2000 | 72.4 |
The table below gives the complete run of December data at this station, year by year. For each December, you can see the total monthly precipitation and the highest amount recorded in any single day of that month. This lets you see not just which years were wet overall, but which ones packed their rain into a single intense burst.
The chart shows the complete annual series. The table lists the most notable years; the full series comes from Met Office.
| Year | Total December precipitation (mm) | Max daily precipitation (mm) |
|---|---|---|
| 1993 | 103.4 | 17.6 |
| 1995 | 63.3 | 19.7 |
| 1996 | 53.5 | 21.2 |
| 2002 | 94.0 | 21.0 |
| 2003 | 75.6 | 16.3 |
| 2004 | 16.1 | 5.2 |
| 2007 | 57.7 | 17.5 |
Looking at the range of Decembers in this series, the variation is striking. The driest December in the record, in 2004, brought just 16.1 mm — barely more than a single wet day in 1996. The 103.4 mm of 1993 is more than six times that total, showing just how much December rainfall can swing from year to year in this part of the Midlands.
The records also reveal a certain rhythm: the wettest Decembers cluster in the 1990s and early 2000s, with 1993, 1994, and 2002 all appearing in the top three. Meanwhile, the first decade of the 2000s saw some notably dry Decembers, like the 16.1 mm of 2004 and the 32.2 mm of 2001. While 1993's record still stands, Decembers at this station show no simple pattern — just a wide spread of possibilities, from near-dry to thoroughly drenched.
For anyone planning events or travel in the Birmingham area during December, the lesson from 35 years of data is clear: assume the possibility of rain. The record 103.4 mm of 1993 and the wet months of 2002 and 1994 show that a very wet December is far from impossible. But the 16.1 mm of 2004 is a reminder that some Decembers here are surprisingly dry. That's the range at play in a typical month of British winter.
Source: Met Office MIDAS data from the Coton-in-the-Elms station, Derbyshire. Period analysed: 1991–2025.
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© 2026 HistoClima · data: Met Office (OGL v3.0) · not affiliated with Met Office · citation permitted with source.