Find out more: listen to today's Daily Sensemaker on the Observer website or wherever you get your podcasts
At the end of January, a major incident was declared in Somerset, after intense rain caused heavy flooding, with water levels rising to more than a metre higher than usual.
Meanwhile, other parts of the country have faced record levels of cloud cover.
In Aberdeen, the sun didn’t shine at all between the 22 January and 12 February – a total of 21 days. Even when the sun did make a brief reappearance, it was only out for 30 minutes.
According to the Met Office, this year England faced its sixth wettest winter since records began in 1836; and for Northern Ireland, it was the wettest in nearly 150 years.
So what’s causing the weather to stay so miserable for so long?
Find out in today's Sensemaker.
Photograph by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
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