LONDON – Just. Stop. Raining. That was the unusual plea published in an editorial in The Times of London, a measure of Britons’ growing frustration with months of miserable weather.
“Let us make our position crystal clear: We are against this weather,” The venerable newspaper wrote in an unsigned opinion piece. “It must stop raining, and soon.”
The UK is slogging through some of the wettest conditions in recent history. Nearly every day seems to bring showers, sprinkles, drizzles, or downpours. On Saturday alone, England’s Environment Agency registered some 75 flood alerts and warnings across the country, including the west England county of Shropshire, where fire and rescue officials received an anguished phone call from a woman who found herself waist-deep in water overnight.
Area manager Martin Timmis said he was seeing flash floods almost every week as storms dumped more water on the already-saturated ground of a country not unused to wet weather.
“What’s unprecedented is that this is becoming a regular occurrence,” he said in a telephone interview. “The rain comes down and it’s got nowhere to go.” The soggy scenario has been repeated around the UK, with summer music festivals washed out, sporting events soaked, and spirits dampened by the non-stop precipitation.
Earlier this month the MFEST music festival in the English city of Leeds-where The Human League, Texas, Bob Geldof and Cher Lloyd were all booked to perform-was canceled due to the foul weather.
This week the Hit Factory Live, scheduled to feature pop princess Kylie Minogue, was canceled after London’s Hyde Park was turned into a mucky quagmire.
