The UK in June
Mike Hulme on last month’s weather
DAYTIME TEMPERATURES
Temperatures were variable
during June, both through the month and across the country. A cool first two weeks were followed by a
mini-heatwave from the 17th to 20th. Daytime temperatures locally reached 32C and
on Sunday the 18th the nationwide average temperature reached 23.5C,
over 6C above the average. Although
most of Scotland shared this heatwave, temperatures during the rest of the
month were disappointing and parts of northern Scotland ended up more than 1C
colder than usual for June. When
averaged across the country and through the month, temperatures in June were
close to average.
RAINFALL
June was rather dry,
particularly over much of England. Most
of southern England received less than 50% of average June rainfall. Northern England, Northern Ireland and
Scotland were wetter, however, with rainfall closer to the monthly norm. Over 100mm at Morecambe compared with only
14mm at Exmouth. Most of June's
rainfall fell during the first 10 days of the month and there were long dry
spells during the remaining three weeks.
SUNSHINE
Sunshine totals were also
slightly below average across most of the UK, although in relative terms the
sunniest locations were in Scotland. Birmingham recorded a disappointing 137 hours of sunshine, while
Stornoway received over 170 hours. The
two hottest days of the month - 18th and 19th - were also
the two sunniest, both averaging more than 10 hours sunshine across the
country. There have been very few such
cloudy months in relative terms over the last 2 years in the UK (see
graph). Despite the weather in June,
year 2000 continues to have been mild, wet and sunny relative to the long-term
average.
Dr Mike Hulme is a research
climatologist at the University of East Anglia
(more details at website at
www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/)
June 2000: Warm in the south, cool in the north
Daytime Temperature: average; Rainfall:
14% below average; Sunshine:
10% below average.
[all average figures are
based on the 1951-80 average]
Mean monthly extremes:
Warmest Bristol 20.2°C
Sunniest Bournemouth 214 hours
sun
Wettest Scarborough 120mm
Coldest Lerwick 10.9°C
Cloudiest Eskdalemuir 102 hours
sun
Driest Folkestone 14mm