BOLTON is heading for its wettest year on record -- and hospital worker Graham Fullarton has every drop of rain documented to prove it.

Mr Fullarton, aged 44, is the Royal Bolton Hospital's data protection manager, but a boyhood passion for weather made him an expert on the subject.

For seven years the Turton man was a full time weather expert studying Meteorology at Reading University and Manchester's UMIST.

And Mr Fullarton couldn't have chosen a better place than Manchester to study his chosen subject of cloud physics -- which to you and me means how and why rain falls.

John's passion for precipitation began as a boy growing up in the North-east seaside town of Whitley Bay.

"I have always been interested in the weather and I began by making my own rain gauges and putting them in the garden and it just grew from there," he said.

His work in the technical world of weather patterns inevitably meant working with computers and he made the move from meteorology to medical applications in 1991.

But he still keeps more than a watchful eye on the skies and has continued to keep his own records of weather patterns over rain-soaked Bolton.

"This autumn has been the wettest on UK records which go back to 1776," he said. "The total rain which fell on Turton during this time was 31.5 inches and rain fell on 83 out of 91 days. In the bible it only fell for 40 days and nights. If things carry on as they are this will be the wettest year on record."

And Mr Fullarton's calculations could come in handy for the hospital itself. He said: "A total of 15m gallons of water has fallen on the Royal Bolton Hospital site. It is enough rain to supply all the Trust's needs for over a year."

He has also calculated that Bolton's autumn showers would have filled 4.2m baths, washed the Bolton Wanderers Reebok ground 400,000 times and fill Horwich swimming pool 250 times over.

"Sometimes people who work at the hospital such as the gardeners who know about my passion for weather will ask me whether it's going to rain or not," he said. "I try and help them out when I can."

But there is a serious side to Mr Fullarton's studies, which he hopes to explore further with hospital colleagues.

"Currently there is research being conducted within the NHS which compares patterns of illness with weather patterns and this is something I would like to explore further," he said.

Mr Fullarton says the reason for the wettest autumn ever could be the first affects of global warming.

"We have a long way to go with global warming and I think we will see more extremes of weather such as wetter winters and warmer summers rather than it just raining all the time," he said.

And Mr Fullarton's prediction for the next few days is --guess what -- rain, rain and more rain.

But he added: "It's still too early to say whether we will have a white Christmas or not so I won't be putting a bet on just yet."