Why does London recieve less rainfall than St. Ives in cornwall?

Question

Does it have something to do with prevailing winds?

Answer 1

You're right - much of it is to do with the prevailing winds. The general direction that the wind blows from is the south west, it comes in off the Atlantic bringing with it moisture laden air.

As it travels in a north-easterly direction it mixes with the colder northerly air and cools down, the cooler air is the less water vapour it can contain and the excess falls as rain.

At the same time, because the west of the UK is generally higher than the east and as the air mass makes landfall it gets pushed upwards by the landmass, this squeezes the atmosphere so it's more densely packed with water vapour and at the same time it's being cooled down as well due to being pushed upwards. Again this means that there's often too much water vapour in the air so it falls as rain. The more technical term for this is Saturation Vapour Point.

As a general rule of thumb, the further east you go in the UK the drier it is with the result that the east coast right the way from Aberdeen down to Dover is the driest part of the UK, whereas the high ground in the west such as the Lake District and the Scottish Highlands receive many times more rainfall.

Answer 2

Yes its simply that the prevailing wind in southern Britain is south west.
This means that moist air coming in off the atlantic can deposit rain as it travels easterly. So by the time that it reaches London there is less water vapour available to form rain. Also Cornwall is hillier encouraging more rain to fall there.
But of course it can happen that heavy rain occurs in the south east from continental storms whilst cornwall remains dry.

Answer 3

london further inland st ives is on the coast