September 1999 was one of the warmest 10 September's the UK has experienced in 340 years of measurements. Daytime temperatures averaged 1.7° C above the normal, and in southwest England and northeast Scotland, the anomalies were well over 2° C above normal. This was due largely to a very warm spell during the first week of September, with the average nationwide daytime temperature reaching 22.7° C on the 5^th, the fifth hottest day of the year. There were no cold spells during the month and even though temperatures fell during the last fortnight, they still remained above the monthly norm.

After a dry first week, September turned into a very wet month with only a few locations in northern England and southern Scotland failing to record at least their average September rainfall. Bournemouth and Folkestone on the south coast both recorded well over twice their usual September rainfall. Both locations were substantially wetter than Eskdalemuir in the Southern Uplands, which is usually the wettest of the 20 locations monitored here. The third week of September was the wettest week of 1999 so far.

As well as being warm and wet, September managed the unusual distinction of also being sunnier than average - by nearly 10 per cent. Nearly everywhere enjoyed this excess sunshine, nowhere more so than Scarborough which recorded over 6 hours of sunshine per day compared to an average of only about 4.5 hours/day. This sunny September means that 10 of the last 12 months in the UK have been sunnier than usual (see Graph).

Dr Mike Hulme is a Research Climatologist at the University of East Anglia

(more details at web site: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/)

Daytime Temperature: 1.7°C above average; Rainfall: 38% above average; Sunshine: 9% above average.

[all average figures are based on the 1951-80 average]

Mean monthly extremes:

Warmest Guernsey 21.4°C

Sunniest Guernsey 193 hours sun

Wettest Tiree 183mm

Coldest Lerwick 13.6°C

Cloudiest Lerwick 91 hours sun

Driest Birmingham 40mm