Climate summaries

Overview of weather across the UK for previous months, seasons and years

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UK last month

October 2020

October began very unsettled, with Storm Alex bringing rain and strong winds to much of England and Wales on the 2nd, and a very wet day followed for much of the UK on the 3rd. From the 4th to 13th it remained unsettled with rain or showers, and from the 8th winds changed to a mainly northerly or north-westerly direction. It was more settled from the 14th to 18th with easterly winds, though many places were rather cloudy at times. The weather turned very wet and windy from the 19th onwards, with mainly westerly and south-westerly winds, and rain belts crossed the country at frequent intervals, with some brighter showery weather in between.

The provisional UK mean temperature was 9.4 °C, which is 0.1 °C below the 1981-2010 long-term average. Mean maximum temperatures were around 0.5 °C below average in many places, while mean minimum temperatures were mostly up to 0.5 °C above average. For most of the UK it was a wet and dull month, with 142% of average rainfall and 72% of average sunshine – provisionally the fifth wettest October in a series from 1862, and also the fifth dullest since 1919. Rainfall was near average in some western areas, but well above average further east, with over 200% of normal for London and the south-east and also parts of Aberdeenshire and Moray. Sunshine was particularly low for much of England and Wales, with only the south of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man having above average sunshine.

The UK monthly extremes were as follows: A maximum temperature of 19.1 °C was recorded at Writtle (Essex) on the 8th. A minimum temperature of -3.3 °C was recorded at Tyndrum (Perthshire) on the 15th. In the 24 hours ending at 0900 GMT on the 4th, 127.1 mm of rain fell at Fettercairn (Kincardineshire). A wind gust of 69 knots (79 mph) was recorded at Altnaharra (Sutherland) on the 25th.

Regional values for October 2020