Image above taken May 2020 showing the flooded meadow behind Myrtle Cottage Sternfield.
The wettest month on record
According to the Met Office people spend on average 56.6 hours talking about the weather over the course of the year and it’s the favourite topic used for breaking the ice in order to start a conversation.
This January 2026 residents of Benhall & Sternfield have been talking about the persistent rain and many of us have visited the Sternfield Run to check if its flooded or not.
From the UK Met Office February 2026:
The opening weeks of 2026 have been exceptionally wet across the UK. A strong and unusually southerly jet stream has steered a succession of low‑pressure systems towards our shores, bringing frequent rain, strong winds and, at times, wintry hazards.
The pattern has been notable not only for how often rain has arrived, but also for how slowly some fronts have cleared, leaving many places with the sense that winter has been ‘stuck on repeat’.
January was markedly wet in several regions, including southwest England, eastern Scotland and Northern Ireland. Cornwall and County Down recorded their wettest January on record.
Across the UK, 26 stations set new monthly records for highest January rainfall. Daily records also fell: Plymouth recorded its wettest January day in 104 years, Hurn (Dorset) in 74 years and Dunkeswell (Devon) in 57 years. Each of these figures helps to demonstrate that 2026 has started not just wetter than average, but with rainfall intensities and frequencies that rival some of the most notable periods in the observing record.
What about in Benhall & Sternfield?
Here are a few images from the archive of flooding in our villages:
Bill Bell C 1950s with flood up to the Sternfield Run bridge
Sternfield Run 1967, image taken by Hannah Fidler
Sternfield Run March 2008
View over to Garden Cottage, Sternfield March 2008
Sternfield Run March 2008
Benhall Green is very lucky to have its own rainfall recorder who has been monitoring our village rainfall for the past few years. Here is a chart showing total rainfall per month in millimetres from March 2023 to January 2026.
So as you can see January 2026 at 90.5 mm (3 1/2 inches) was the highest recorded for January in last couple of years but not higher than the rainfall in May 2024 for example which was 186 mm (7.3 inches).
In the Ebb & Flow magazine February 2026 the Great Glemham rainfall recorder showed totals for rainfall in November 2025 at 103.5mm & December 2025 at 48.5mm, higher than in Benhall Green for the same month.
So, it seems as though rainfall hasn’t been that high for January 2026 though that isn’t how it has felt due to so many consecutive days of rainfall.
If in doubt, why not check out the Government’s Research & Analysis summary document here:
