The forgotten drought of 1765-1768: Reconstructing and re-evaluating historical droughts in the British and Irish Isles.

Historical precipitation records are fundamental for the management of water resources, yet rainfall observations typically span 100-150 years at most, with considerable uncertainties surrounding earlier records. Here, we analyse some of the longest available precipitation records globally, for England and Wales, Scotland and Ireland. To assess the credibility of these records and extend them further back in time, we statistically reconstruct (using independent predictors) monthly precipitation series representing these regions for the period 1748-2000.