The UK in September
Mike Hulme on last month's weather
DAYTIME TEMPERATURES
For the 6th
successive September, daytime temperatures in the UK were above the long-term
average keeping the year as a whole about 0.7C warmer than usual. This late summer warmth was quite uniform
across the country, perhaps a little more in the south and west and a little
less in the north and east. Of the 20
locations monitored here, only Birmingham was colder than normal. The only coolish spell during the month was
from 18-20th September when temperatures were 1-2C below usual.
RAINFALL
After a dry - but not very
dry - summer, September was extremely wet, the wettest September for over 15
years. Until the end of August, there
had only been 15 days this year recording a nationwide average of 6mm or more
rainfall; in September, there were 10 further such days! The wettest single day of the year was the
20th September with over 13mm rainfall nationwide and the wettest
week was from the 18-24th.
Only a few of the Western Isles and the extreme south coast of England
failed to record more than the average September rainfall, and even here it was
only by a few mm. Birmingham, Skegness
and Leuchars all recorded more than twice the normal monthly rainfall.
SUNSHINE
Not surprisingly for such a
wet month, September was quite cloudy, although parts of Scotland enjoyed above
average sunshine. Much of England and
Wales recorded about 80% of usual sunshine, Birmingham only 70%. The 13-15th was the gloomiest
3-day spell in Britain since early February.
Dr Mike Hulme is a research
climatologist at the University of East Anglia
(more details at website at
www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~mikeh/)
September 2000: Wet, but quite mild
Daytime Temperature: 0.7C above average; Rainfall: 55% below average; Sunshine: 8% below average.
[all average figures are
based on the 1951-80 average]
Mean monthly extremes:
Warmest Guernsey 20.3C
Sunniest Folkestone 162 hours
sun
Wettest Eskdalemuir 192mm
Coldest Lerwick 12.6C
Cloudiest Eskdalemuir 81
hours sun
Driest Guernsey
65mm