Polling day: will the weather get in the way?

It’s less than 24 hours until the nation heads to the polls to cast a vote on who they want to see govern the country for the next five years.

This time round, it seems that predicting the weather will be a much easier job than predicting the outcome of the election, as the party leaders have their last-minute push of campaigning.

But can the weather have an impact on the level of voter turnout?

Well, you may be surprised to hear that as far as I can gather, there’s never been any official study that has been carried out to examine the relationship between weather and voter turnout in the UK.

US study on link between weather and turnout

In 2007, the Journal of Politics carried out a study that examined the impact of weather on voter turnout in 14 presidential elections.

It found that when compared to normal conditions, rain reduces voter participation by a rate of just less than 1 per cent per inch, while an inch of snowfall decreases turnout by almost 0.5 per cent.

While this may sound interesting, it does makes sense. Any kind of severe weather – rain, snow, ice or storms – will inevitably have an impact on peoples’ ability to move around and thus get to a polling station.

With elections in the UK taking place in May, it is a time of year when we are unlikely, compared to other months, to experience weather severe enough to impact upon our movement.

What will the weather be like on polling day?

Whilst the last 24 hours have been unseasonably windy across the UK, with gusts of wind widely reaching 40-50mph, the weather on polling day is looking much quieter.

The area of low pressure that’s been bringing the wind and rain is moving away towards Scandinavia, with high pressure building in from the south.

So tomorrow will be a day of fewer showers, more sunshine and lighter winds across the UK, with most places dry for much of the day.

Temperatures will be around 8-12C for Scotland and Northern Ireland, with 11-17C across England and Wales.

The liveliest weather is likely to be across the northern isles of Scotland, where there could be gales in the morning, but even here, the winds will ease through the day.

So, it seems as though no one will be able to blame the weather for turnout this time round.