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These Swedish towns are having their rainiest March in over 100 years

The Local Sweden
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These Swedish towns are having their rainiest March in over 100 years
A man shelters from the rain with an umbrella in Malmö. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

No, you didn't just imagine it. With ten days still to go, this March is already the rainiest on record across huge swathes of southern Sweden.

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People in Gothenburg have spent the past three weeks enduring a record 134 millimetres of rain and drizzle. 
 
Barely more than half-way through March (17 days in), the near constant downpour has already easily pushed the city past its previous rain record record of 121mm for the month, set back in 1872. 
 
Malmö was hit by 110mm of rainfall over the same period, beating the previous March record of 92mm set back in 1979. Records began in 1917. 
 
"March is usually a dry month, but this year there's been an unusual amount of rain," Moa Hallberg at SMHI told the Sydsvenskan newspaper.
 
Malmöites grumbling at the grey skies and constant drizzle, should perhaps be thankful they're not living further north, where it's been both wetter and colder. 
 
 
Gothenburg may have had it bad, but even Helsingborg received 116mm of rain over the period, leaping past its 2009 record of 100mm (records began in 1931, a bit later than the other cities in this article).
 
And Borås, normally Sweden's rainiest town, has received 144mm of rain, beating its 1994 record of 138mm (records began in 1884). 
 
Piteå in the far north of Sweden, where records began in 1859, has also already set a new March record with 76mm of rainfall.
 
According to Hallberg the persistent low pressure that has led to this rainy weather is still hanging around, meaning there is more wet weather to come. 
 
"It's going to continue being blowy and wet for a while but the temperature is going to start edging up to a milder level." 

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