Just over 60mm more rain in the next week and a bit will make this February the wettest on record.
But while 2026 has been a story of constant miserable and dank days, record-holding 1978 was far more dramatic.
Dubbed ‘Freak February’ by the Press of the day, it contained a hurricane, a blizzard and, over a 30-hour period across the weekend of 19 and 20, a deluge that brought almost a month’s worth of rain.
2.8 inches of rain fell across the two days – almost as much as you would see in an average February today.
The deluge brought widespread flooding described as ‘the worst in living memory’ and was front page news for three consecutive days.
The Guernsey Press at the time calculated that five and a half million tonnes of water fell on Guernsey, 350 tonnes of rain for every acre of the island – enough rain, it was said, to fill all the reservoirs and water storage quarries twice.
Many houses were flooded. The fire brigade was called out 76 times, with the headlines describing it as a ‘day of heartbreak’.
‘For those whose homes and vineries stood in the path of the rushing water, the rest of a lifetime will not be long enough to erase the memory,’ gushed chief reporter Herbert Winterflood.
The storm appeared to catch most people by surprise after Saturday’s Press had predicted snow.
‘Cars were stranded – some at La Ramee had water up to their windscreens. Firemen rescued a mother and a child marooned in her car,’ the newspaper reported.
Tuesday paper declared that it was ‘all hands to the pump’. Two homes had been evacuated while ‘many families spent a miserable night huddled upstairs. By the morning many houses still had a foot of water.’
Many islanders blamed the flooding on the amount of water coming out of the reservoir and pumping stations not being turned on, something the States Water Board denied.
As well as homes they were many stories covering the impact on the island’s greenhouses, with the flooding coming at a vital time in the season for the island’s tomato and flower growers.
Wednesday saw pumping continue with flood waters still stretching ‘from Victoria Avenue to Pitronnerie Road’.
Such was the damage to property that parish constables from across the island held an emergency meeting to discuss setting up a special appeals fund.
The clean-up operation went into the next week, at which time one Press article suggested that households could take the dust bag out of vacuum cleaners, reverse the hose, and use the appliance as a ‘hot air dryer which should help dry out affected rooms’.
Despite the flooding, the month is actually best remembered for the stranding of the Orion – the 19,000-ton Norwegian oil rig which broke free from its tow during a severe storm on February 1 and ran aground at Grandes Rocques.
More than 30 crew members were stranded on the 276-foot tall structure in Force 12 winds, necessitating a major, multi-day rescue operation to winch everyone to safety.
The rig was the island’s guest for almost the entire month, come rain or shine, as it was not until the 27th that it was finally refloated and towed away to France.