The UK in October
Mike Hulme on last month’s weather
DAYTIME TEMPERATURES
October was a
record-breaking month for temperatures in the UK, being the warmest October in
the 340-year long Central England Temperature (CET) series. The monthly anomaly in the CET was about 3C
above normal. The daytime temperature
for the whole UK monitored in this column was nearly 2C above the long-term
average, suggesting that nights were more unusually warm during October than
were days. Nevertheless, the whole of
the UK enjoyed this mild weather, even Lerwick and Stornoway in the far north
of Scotland recording temperatures more than 1C milder than normal. And the only day in the month when
temperatures fell below their seasonal norm was the very last of the month, the
31st. Such a prolongation of
mild weather into autumn contributes to the lengthening of the growing season
in the UK, which has been almost four weeks longer during the last decade than
it was 100 years ago.
RAINFALL
The mild southerly and
westerly airflow also brought with it rain, and during October most parts of
the country were wetter than average.
Only parts of the southern and eastern coastal regions failed to reach
their monthly average rainfall, whilst Ross-on-Wye, Birmingham and Eskdalemuir
recorded more than twice the normal.
There was some localised flooding during the month, the wettest days
being the 1st, the 8th and the 20th. The country as a whole recorded 47% more
rainfall than usual during the month.
SUNSHINE
Scotland and Northern Ireland
were cloudy during October, whilst England and Wales were sunnier than
usual. Overall, the UK average sunshine
for the month was almost exactly average.
The coldest day of October – the 31st – also turned out to be
the sunniest, with a nationwide average of 6.4 hours of sunshine, more than
twice the average for the time of year.
Skegness and Scarborough on the east coast were two of the sunniest
locations for the month, each averaging about 4.5 hours of sunshine. In contrast, sunshine totals for most of
Scotland only reached 70-90% of average.
Dr Mike Hulme is at UEA and
is a Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
(more details at website at
www.tyndall.ac.uk)
October 2001: Very mild, and rather wet
Daytime Temperature: 1.9C above average; Rainfall: 47% above average; Sunshine: 1% above average.
[all average figures are
based on the 1951-80 average]
Mean monthly extremes:
Warmest Guernsey 18.2C
Sunniest Skegness 145 hours
sun
Wettest Eskdalemuir 288mm
Coldest Lerwick 11.6C
Cloudiest Eskdalemuir 42
hours sun
Driest Skegness 37mm