Annual rainfall in Oxford, 1963 to 2012

Annual rainfall (mm)
639.9 494.6 577.7 723.6 530.5
418.5 783.8 608.7 703.5 727.4
658.4 538.4 662.0 683.4 504.7
751.2 509.2 704.1 457.6 765.1
700.0 710.6 595.6 599.6 753.9
813.1 576.8 571.1 765.3 820.9
609.2 751.9 598.8 736.7 620.5
641.6 634.3 473.0 826.7 603.7
740.6 682.9 526.8 677.0 480.9
575.7 654.5 795.6 813.5 984.4

 

What is the chance that the annual rainfall in Oxford will be under 400 mm in a future year?

It may be interesting to try to explain some of the variation in annual rainfall in terms of the "El Nino/La Nina" climatic cycle in the Pacific Ocean or gradual climate change. However these effects are minor compared to the natural variation in rainfall.

Variation in the table gives an idea of the likely variation in the future.

Rainfall is particularly important to farmers. For countries that are susceptible to drought, the variability in past weather records might give information about:

This information can potentially help farmers to decide which crops to plant and when to plant them.

The data are annual rainfalls (mm) in Oxford, England from 1959 to 2008. The values should be read down columns, so they are: