Old, yellowed papers marked with cursive handwriting, with a magnifying glass resting on the top.

Archived monthly weather summaries

The front page gives a textual summary of the overall weather for the month and significant weather events such as storms and floods. Depending on the period,
summaries will also include maps showing movement of depressions, rainfall, temperature and sunshine. The front pages of the summaries have been scanned and are available to view in the observations collection in our Digital Library and Archive.

Example of pages from a monthly weather summary, with tables of numerical data on the left, and a set of 4 UK maps showing wind and mean pressure, movements of depressions, distribution of mean temperature and bright sunshine in hours per day on the right.
Example inside pages from a monthly weather summary.

Most useful for

They are useful for a quick overview of the weather characteristics for any month in the series.

Things to bear in mind

Although the later summaries provide data from every station in the climatological network the early part of the series includes only a small selection. If the station you are looking for is not included in the monthly weather summary you will need to request the relevant climatological return instead. The summaries are intended to give monthly data. If you need daily data you will need to use another source.