British paper demands end to wet weather

Associated Press

LONDON

Just. Stop. Raining.

That was the unusual plea published in an editorial in The Times of London on Saturday, 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 U.K. 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 U.K., with summer music festivals washed out, sporting events soaked, and spirits dampened by the nonstop precipitation.