Paul Homewood has done a fascinating review of the precipitation data. Examining both the data for the South West and for the station nearest to the Levels, he has found that while it has been very wet down there the situation is far from unprecedented.
At the local station of Yeovilton, about 20 miles south, Met Office figures show that rainfall in November was 23% lower than normal. Given this, and the dry summer, river levels should have pretty low as December started....
At Yeovilton, in December, rainfall was 43mm above normal. Although, as I say, January data is not yet available, rainfall maps don’t suggest that Somerset has been wetter than the rest of the region and indicate between 150mm and 200mm, against a normal of 67mm.
This would imply that December and January’s rainfall combined was probably about 120mm and 170mm above normal.