A woman who is allergic to rain has spoken of her desire to move to Australia to get away from the cold and wet British weather. 2026 has seen at least one part of the UK battered by cold rainfall on almost every single day of the year.

Whilst this has caused travel disruption for many, most have simply been annoyed by thepersistence of the damp conditions.

However, for individuals like musician Bee Jarvis, the constant rainfall is far more disruptive, as she suffers from a condition known as cold urticaria, a condition thought to affect just five or six in every 10,000 people.

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According to Allergy UK an urticaria is also known as “nettle rash or hives” and is characterised by the appearance of “wheals – spots or patches of raised red or white skin – each of which usually clears away in a few hours to be replaced by other fresh wheals”.

In Bee’s case, her urticaria is triggered by low temperatures, a common feature of British winters and a condition that she said only started after an illness eight years ago.

Speaking to the Telegraph, Bee, based in Plymouth, said that when she was 19, she went into hospital after experiencing problems with her gallbladder, and had an allergic reaction to “one of the medications” before breaking out in hives.

When she swam in the sea afterwards in a bid to improve her recovery, she recalls her body becoming “covered in painful, itchy hives” minutes after she had submerged herself.

Discussing the parameters of her urticaria triggers, Bee said: “But even worse, ever since then, if any part of my body - face, hands, feet - is exposed to the wet or temperatures under about 20C, I have a flare-up.”

Of even bigger surprise to Bee is that the allergy appears to have come out of nowhere, given no-one else in her family has anything similar.

She said: “I don't have any other allergies and none of my family suffers like this, so I've no idea why it's affecting me so much…But my dream is to live in Australia for six months in the winter so that I can leave behind all the rain and cold in the UK.”

There are different types of urticaria, including aquagenic urticaria, one triggered by water, which would be problematic during a time of persistent rainfall.

Speaking on This Morning last year, aquagenic urticaria sufferer Erin Cassidy said the condition was so bad that even crying burns her skin, but that it took years for her GP to take her seriously.

She said: “I kept going back and back and back and was just told to just take some antihistamines, it will die down.

"But then nine years later I went to a different GP surgery, due to relocating, he did all my checks and I was in there for 50 minutes and he had confirmed, it was a water allergy.”