October weather summary

October was a typical autumnal month with a mixture of showers and rain and a couple of short settled spells. In our video forecaster Charlie explains the weather that characterised October. We’ve also included your photos of October weather that you sent in via Twitter and Facebook.

You can read our full October weather overview, including temperature extremes and weather impacts, on our website.

Your October weather images

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If you would like your image to feature in our November video or slideshow, add your picture to our wall on Facebook or tweet it to us @metoffice. Let us know where you took it and what day it was.

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

 

October so far

This October looks set to be one of the warmest on record in the UK, according to provisional Met Office climate figures.

Using figures from 1-25 October, so far parts of the country have seen temperatures up to 3.1 °C warmer than the 10.2 °C long-term average for the month.

The UK average temperature for this October is currently 11.5 °C, making it the seventh warmest in records which go back to 1910. This compares to the 2001 record which saw an average temperature of 12.2 °C.

There are still five days to go before the end of the month, but temperatures are expected to continue to be relatively mild through to the start of November.

The month started with exceptionally warm temperatures for the time of year. Gravesend in Kentsaw 29.9 °C on 1 October, a new record for the UK and England specifically. Wales also broke its October temperature record on the same day, with Hawarden in Flintshire registering 28.2 °C.

Since then, despite a few periods of cooler weather, the majority of the month has seen mild day and night-time temperatures.

The month has also seen some marked variations in rainfall. England and Wales have, so far, had just over half of their usual monthly rainfall. Northern Ireland, however, has had 163% of its usual monthly total.

Sunshine amounts are also similarly marked across the UK. England has just already hit its monthly average total, whereas Northern Ireland currently has received only 34% of its usual amount.

Location	Average temperature for October		Average rainfall for October
	Actual (°C)	Difference from 1971 to 2000 average (°C)	Actual (mm)	Percentage of 1971 to 2000 average
UK	11.5 °C	2.1 °C	97.6mm	83%
England	12.7 °C	2.2 °C	46.9mm	56%
Northern Ireland	10.8 °C	1.8 °C	187.2mm	163%
Scotland	9.5 °C	1.9 °C	169.6mm	104%
Wales	12.2 °C	2.7 °C	82.5mm	54%

New record temperature for October in the UK

The UK has a new record temperature for the month of October.

Provisionally, the highest temperature of the day was 29.9 °C, recorded at Gravesend in Kent.

This beats the previous record of 29.4 °C recorded at March in Cambridgeshire, which has stood since 1 October 1985.

Wales also has a new national record, 28.2 °C was recorded at Hawarden in Flintshire. The previous record was 26.4 °C recorded at Ruthin, Denbighshire, again on 1 October 1985.

These new records come at the end of an increasingly hot week across many parts of the UK and we may well see record breaking temperatures in some areas again on Sunday.

Met Office in the Media: 27 Oct 2010

Over recent days there has been a great deal of coverage regarding the chilly conditions across parts of Britain.  The Daily Telegraph, reports that Frozen Britain braves coldest October night for 17 years. Many parts of northern Britain had a very cold night overnight Sunday into Monday with Levens Hall, Cumbria, seeing an overnight low of -6.6C, the coldest for 17 years. Other cold places included Trawsgoed in Wales and West Freugh in Scotland.  The cold snap has been relatively short lived as winds have now turned more west or southwesterly again bringing milder conditions across the UK.

The Sunday Times has reported on NASA GISS data showing that Oct 2009 to September 2010 was the warmest 12 month period on record since records began. The article also reported that data from the Met Office, where we compile global temperature data in a different way, would confirm that the same period would “probably the first or second hottest on record”.