The UK in June

Mike Hulme on last month’s weather

 

DAYTIME TEMPERATURES

June in the UK was cooler than the long-term average for the third successive year. Although daytime temperatures in the south were close to usual, over western and especially northern Britain, June was a cool month. The first 10 days of the month were consistently between 2° and 3° C below the seasonal average, although temperatures had warmed up by the end of the month. Friday the 25th June was the best day of the month, and the warmest day of the year so far, with over 12 hours of sunshine, no rainfall, and a nationwide daytime average temperature of 20.5° C.

 

RAINFALL

The first and last weeks in June were very wet, but in between there were nearly three weeks of fine and fairly dry weather. Overall, June was about 37 per cent wetter than average, continuing the run of successive wet June's, although not as wet as in 1997 and 1998. In relative terms, the south and east of the country were the wettest regions and parts of East Anglia recorded more than twice their average June rainfall. The year 1999 continues to be a wet one.

 

SUNSHINE

Averaged over the country, June sunshine totals were close to normal, but this masks a contrast between Scotland (cloudy) and the rest of the country (slightly sunnier than usual). Folkestone averaged nearly 9 hours of sunshine a day (14% above average) whereas Lerwick averaged less than 4 hours of sun (29% below average). The 25th and 26th June were the two sunniest days of 1999 so far. After a sunny winter, sunshine totals in the UK dropped during the spring to close to their seasonal norm (see Graph).

 

June 1999: Rather wet, cool in the north

Daytime Temperature: 0.6°C below average; Rainfall: 37% above average; Sunshine: 4% below average.

[all average figures are based on the 1951-80 average]

 

Mean monthly extremes:

Warmest Bristol 19.1°C

Sunniest Folkestone 268 hours sun

Wettest Eskdalemuir 98mm

Coldest Lerwick 11.8°C

Cloudiest Lerwick 113 hours sun

Driest Ross-on-Wye 53mm