Climate summaries

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

Those interested in climate change and predictions of future climates should also visit the Climate Change pages.

UK last month

January 2023

The first half of January continued with the mild, unsettled and wet theme of the last two weeks of December, with some areas having roughly their average rainfall for the whole of January within the first two weeks. Again, though, this proved to be a month of two halves, with much drier and colder weather from mid-month, although temperatures gradually edged upwards in the final week to somewhere near or slightly above average. This was also a particularly sunny January, for the second year in a row.

Mean temperatures for this month ended up slightly above average, with a provisional UK mean temperature of 4.4 °C, this being 0.4 °C above the 1991-2020 average. Northern parts of England and Wales were furthest above average, but anomalies were nowhere more than +1 °C. Some very low temperatures were recorded around mid-month at certain Scottish locations. Rainfall was broadly close to average, with 103% for the UK overall, but again this conceals the 'two halves' nature of the month; wettest areas relative to normal were Wales and western parts of England (around 150% of average in a few places), while a strip from the Grampians to Lincolnshire was the driest (only 50% in a few places). Sunshine was well above average in most areas, with north-west Scotland the notable exception, giving England its second sunniest January on record (just behind 2022), and the UK as a whole having 133% of average, the third sunniest in a series from 1919.

The UK monthly extremes were as follows: A maximum temperature of 15.8 °C was recorded at Dyce (Aberdeenshire) on the 24th. A minimum temperature of -10.4 °C was recorded at Drumnadrochit (Inverness-shire) on the 19th. In the 24 hours ending at 0900 UTC on the 12th, 100.2 mm of rain fell at Maerdy Water Works (Mid-Glamorgan). A wind gust of 72 knots (83 mph) was recorded at Needles (Isle of Wight) on the 12th. A snow-depth of 34 cm was measured at Loch Glascarnoch (Ross & Cromarty) on the 18th and 19th.

Regional values for January 2023