However, one temperature record can’t tell the full story of a season overall. So how did Summer 2019 compare with previous summers?

Tim Legg, of the Met Office’s National Climate Information Centre, provides more detail. He said: “Overall Summer 2019 was the twelfth warmest on record since 1910 across the UK, but unusually this summer was also relatively wet. Previous hot summers have been largely dry but this summer was 7th wettest overall in the UK in a series dating back to 1910.”

Meteorological summer includes June, July and August. Locally, the wettest counties relative to average summer rainfall were Cheshire, Northumberland and Derbyshire. Compared with the average summer rainfall between 1981-2010, these counties saw 179%, 174% and 173%, respectively.

Scotland was very wet overall as it recorded its second wettest summer, only surpassed by summer 1985.

Tim added: “The picture for each of the three months was different depending on where you were in the UK. Southern England and Wales endured the heaviest rainfall in June, whereas Scotland and northernmost parts of England saw the heaviest rainfall in August.”

The mean temperature for the UK for summer 2019 was 15.2 C, which was 0.8 C above the long-term average between 1981-2010.

The UK sunshine figures overall were close to average, but some locations received more sunshine. Compared with average, Kent was the sunniest county with 736 hours of sunshine (116% of average). 

 

End of Summer statistics
Mean temp Rainfall Sunshine
Area Actual temp C Anomaly C Actual mm Anomaly % Actual hours

Anomaly %

UK 15.2 0.8 335.5 139 511.7 101
England 16.3 0.8 260.5 135 569.7 102
Wales 15.1 0.7 364.8 128 518.9 100
Scotland 13.4 0.9 448.7 147 423.0 99
N. Ireland 14.5 0.6 356.4 140 456.7 107

 

 

August statistics
Mean temp Rainfall Sunshine
Area Actual temp C Anomaly C Actual mm Anomaly % Actual hours

Anomaly %

UK 15.8 0.9 136.5 153 173.6 107
England 17.0 0.9 82.0 118 203.4 112
Wales 15.9 0.9 139.3 130 176.3 105
Scotland 13.8 0.8 222.1 191 127.6 95
N. Ireland 15.1 0.8 157.9 162 150.4 111