Bampton - Local Climate
The weather in the south west is one of the mildest in the UK, warmed by the Gulf Stream. Indeed, some areas on the south coast have micro-climates enabling the growing of some exotic species of plants. You will find, for instance, palm trees growing on the south Devon coast in Torquay!
By contrast, on the top of Exmoor or Dartmoor, the weather is significantly cooler and wetter.
Bampton, in mid Devon, benefits from being just off the south east edge of Exmoor, being significantly drier and warmer than just a few miles away. The long-term climate figures shown below are from data for Exeter given on the UK Met Office website (the Met Office is now in Exeter). The figures are averaged from 1961-1990.
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Bampton Rainfall
Actual rainfall figures are given on our download table. The average figures are from the Met Office SW England and S Wales, and Bampton 2004-2017
DOWNLOAD the Rainfall Figures 2010 to present month and whole year 2023 figures - HERE
A few key rainfall events:
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2004 in the South West, it was the wettest August for 92 years - but August 2012 was even wetter! It was in this month that Boscastle in north Cornwall had its devastating flooding.
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2006 was wettest May for over 20 years - and in 2007 the May rainfall was 385% of the average! June was 307% of the average for the month. July four and a half times the normal rainfall!
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2009 in July we had 5 times the average rainfall - and had already exceeded the average annual rainfall for the year! November was 3.5 times the average rainfall.
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2012 - in April, June we had over 3 times the normal monthly rainfall, and in July and in August about 2.5 times. It was the wettest in the SW since records began over 100 years ago. The second half of November brought widespread flooding in the SW when we got over 8" of rain in the last 10 days or so. December was even wetter! Tarr Steps on Exmoor were washed away in the flooding. For the last 3 months (92 days) on only 19 days weas there NO rain falling! Overall, 50% above average rainfall for the year.
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2014 - A very wet year overall, the second wetest in the last 11 years recorded here. Note that yet again August hit the record books as being the wettest for over 100 years! Is this a global warming effect?
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2020 An extraordinarily dry spring (and the warmest April on record). We had no rain from March 19 to April 17 (10mm) and then none until April 28th. May was amazingly dry (16% of average!), then June very wet (276% of average!), August over twice th normal rainfall, then a dry September (50%). OIctober was wet, and December even wetter than normal (163%).
