October coldest since 2003

Provisional figures from our National Climate Information Centre have shown that this October has been a fairly unremarkable month in terms of weather for the UK.

Temperature, rainfall and sunshine have all been fairly close to the average and there’s certainly nothing record breaking about the general figures.

With a mean temperature for the UK of 8.2 °C for the month, it’s on the colder side of average and the coldest October since 2003 – which was the same temperature.

To find a colder month, you have to go back to 1993, which had a mean temperature of 7.3 °C.

In the records dating back to 1910, this October is ranked joint 18^th alongside 2003, 1955 and 1931. Just for the record, the coldest on record was set in 1917, with a much colder 6.6 °C.

For rainfall, the 128.0 mm of rain that fell across the UK during the month is very close to the 1981-2010 average of 127.1 mm – so this October was very ‘normal’ in that respect.

Sunshine is similarly close to the norm, with 92.8 hours of sunshine virtually spot-on with the 1981-2010 average of 92.5 hours.

As ever, there are some regional variations within the national picture, illustrated with these maps:

With regards to temperature, most parts of the country were cooler than average but parts of Scotland saw slightly colder conditions than anywhere else when compared to the regional average.

While rainfall was average for the UK overall, some parts of southern and eastern Britain were considerably wetter than their regional average but it was a somewhat drier than average month across parts of the west and north – particularly western Scotland.

Sunshine also saw regional variation. Parts of the south-east were notably dull – here it was provisionally the dullest October since 1982. The northern half of the UK, and particularly western Scotland, was somewhat sunnier than average.

Here’s a roundup of Met Office observation station extremes for the month:

• Highest temperature: 18.8 °C at Holbeach, Linconshire on 1st

• Lowest temperature: -7.8 °C at Braemar, Aberdeenshire on 17^th

• Wettest day (0000 hrs-0000 hrs): 61.4 mm at Ballpatrick, Antrim on the 18^th

• Sunniest day: 10.4 hours of sunshine at St Athan, Glamorgan on the 6^th

• Strongest gust of wind: 78 mph at the Needles, Isle of Wight on the 5^th

 

How wet has this September been?

The latter part of September saw some exceptional rainfall in parts of the UK which caused disruption and flooding at times.

With such a great deal of rain falling in a short period of time, some people have asked whether it will make September one of the wettest in our national records going back to 1910.

Provisional early statistics up to 26 September show this isn’t the case, however, with the month looking set to be slightly wetter than average – but by no means a record breaker.

Up to the 26th, UK rainfall is 96.3 mm – which is 100% of the full month average. After 26 days we would, assuming rain falls fairly evenly through the month, expect this to be around 87%.

Of course, rain doesn’t always fall evenly throughout a month – as we saw this September. The first three weeks saw relatively little rain in many areas, but then a particularly active weather system brought four days of persistent heavy rain.

Northern parts of England were particularly badly affected by this, as you can see in the rainfall map below. In the map you can see a band of blue colours across northern England denoting above average rainfall for the month, whereas much of the country is coloured white to denote near-average amounts.

Two brown areas, one across central Scotland and the other in East Anglia, show it has been drier than average here – even despite the heavy rain in the latter part of the month.

 

Temperatures up to the 26 September are also fairly ordinary, being slightly below average. Mean temperature for the UK is 12.2 °C, which is 0.5 °C below the long-term average for the month.

While September looks set to be slightly wetter and cooler than average, the good news is sunshine hours were slightly up – with the UK having seen 126.1 hours of sunshine, 101% of its whole-month average.

Again, we’d expect it to be around 87% after 26 days, so we’re ahead – but not by a record-breaking amount.

So this September is set to go down as a fairly average month overall, but – as is often the case – this belies some very stark contrasts and some less-than-usual weather.

Met Office provisional 1-26 September figures

	mean temperature		sunshine duration		rainfall
	Actual	Difference from 1981-2010 average	Actual	% of 1981-2010 average	Actual	% of 1981-2010 average
	degC	degC	hours	%	mm	%
UK	12.2	-0.5	126.1	101	96.3	100
England	13.2	-0.5	145.2	106	80.6	116
Wales	12.1	-0.8	124.5	97	115.3	99
Scotland	10.4	-0.5	98.6	94	117.2	86
N Ireland	11.8	-0.5	105.3	93	94.0	103
England & Wales	13.1	-0.5	142.3	105	85.4	112
England N	12.4	-0.4	124.0	98	121.4	150
England S	13.7	-0.5	156.4	110	59.0	93