2013–14 United Kingdom winter floods
The 2013–2014 United Kingdom winter floods saw areas of Ireland and the United Kingdom inundated following severe storms. The south of England saw heavy rainfalls associated with these storms which caused widespread flooding, power cuts and major disruptions to transport. Economically, the worst affected areas were Somerset, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall in the south west and the Thames Valley in the south east.
Emergency pumps were brought in to drain the Somerset levels. | |
| Date | 5 December 2013 – 25 February 2014 |
|---|---|
| Location | United Kingdom and Ireland |
| Deaths | at least 17 dead |
The Met Office reported the storms produced the wettest 1 December to 31 January since 1876; a local authority report states the winter as a whole, from the beginning of December until the end of February, was the wettest recorded in the UK since records began in 1766. Parts of South East England received almost two and a half times the amount of rainfall that they would normally expect.
The flood phenomena ranged from coastal flooding, pluvial flooding, fluvial flooding to groundwater flooding. The flooding took over most of the Somerset Levels and saw the main railway line to Cornwall and West Devon at Dawlish severed for several weeks.