Climate summaries

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

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UK last month

July 2020

July began with low pressure dominating, giving mainly cloudy weather with showers and longer spells of rain. It continued unsettled and mostly cloudy until the 9th. Between the 10th and 22nd, high pressure often ridged into southern parts of the UK, bringing dry sunny weather to southern England, and from the 10th to 12th and 19th to 21st, the high moved further north bringing more widespread fine weather, but central and northern counties otherwise remained unsettled and often cloudy. It was generally changeable from the 23rd to 29th, but a brief hot southerly incursion on the 30th and 31st brought unusually high temperatures to many parts of the UK, locally reaching 37.8 °C (100 °F) in the south-east.

The provisional UK mean temperature was 14.3 °C, which is 0.8 °C below the 1981-2010 long-term average. Mean maximum temperatures were around 1.5 °C below average in western areas from Wales northwards, but less than 0.5 °C below normal in the south-east. Mean minimum temperatures were generally around 0.5 °C below normal. Rainfall was 122% of average, and it was a wet month in eastern and south-western Scotland and in north-west England, but drier than average in parts of the south and in some coastal parts of north-east England. Sunshine was 83% of average, and was near or above average in parts of southern England and in eastern Scotland, somewhat above normal in Shetland, but generally below normal elsewhere, especially in Northern Ireland.

The UK monthly extremes were as follows: A maximum temperature of 37.8 °C was recorded at Heathrow (London) on the 31st. A minimum temperature of -0.6 °C was recorded at Kinbrace (Sutherland) on the 8th. In the 24 hours ending at 0900 GMT on the 4th, 101.8 mm of rain fell at Aberllefenni, Cymerau Farm (Gwynedd). A wind gust of 58 knots (67 mph) was recorded at Capel Curig (Gwynedd) on the 5th

Regional values for July 2020