October 2024 in Durham and the UK – A tale of two halves

Ah, October in the UK—a month where the weather often feels like it’s playing a game of “guess what’s next.” In 2024, October didn’t disappoint, serving up a mix of sunshine, showers, and a few surprises. A Tale of Two Halves The month kicked off with a blend of wet and dry spells. Early October saw rain sweeping across the …

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October 2023 in Durham – Very Wet, Especially Later

Mild at first, then cool and very wet (Storm Babet) The very first day of October 2023 delivered a 20 degC marker, which was the highest of the month. It remained very mild until 10th when it became much cooler. The first 10 days averaged  14.7 degC, with a mean max of 17.7 degC. It felt quite balmy. It was …

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October 2022 Weather in Durham – Mainly mild and unsettled

October banner : pumpkin and black cat

The Weather at Gilesgate, Durham October 2022 The month was very mild. The temperature reached double figures every day, with an average max of nearly 15 degrees centigrade. There were no air frosts at all during the month. Professor Tim Burt reported that October 2022 was the 6th warmest October since 1843 at Durham. Thirteen days exceeded 15 degC at …

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October 2021 Weather at Durham – Mostly unsettled

Brightly covered leaves in Autumn

October 2021 in Durham can only be described as Autumnal. There was rain on 23 days, with a peak reached on 5th October when a phenomenal 43.8mm of rain was recorded. The thermometer got to 20 degC on the 7th and 8th. A good effort for October.  By the middle of the month, it was getting noticeably colder, and getting …

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October 5th 2021 – What a Deluge!

Satellite Rainfall Picture from October 5th 2021 showing hook

As some of you may have noticed, yesterday (October 5th 2021) was extremely wet! After a long spell with no real heavy rain, it seemingly all arrived on one day. We’d been warned to expect heavy rainfall, but it proved even wetter than that. Durham and North East England just seemed to be in the wrong place this time! Here’s …

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October 2020 Weather in Durham – Starts very wet with Storm Alex, then continues moist.

Radar map of heavy rain over NE England October 2020. Yellow and red colours indicate very heavy rain across Durham

Rainfall October 2020 opened very wet. A total of 32.7mm of rain was recorded at Gilesgate, Durham on 3rd resulted in a rapid rise in the River Wear, overtopping the banks in places, and reaching 2.76m at 8:15am on the 4th. The river level fell back rapidly and had dropped a metre by mid afternoon. It was the wettest day …

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October 2019 Weather in Durham – Wet and Cold

House at Croxdale next to the River Wear. The house is painted white and has extensive ivy growth on the walls. The garden is haevily planted.

October 2019 was more akin to the typical model of what October should be in the UK. Autumn storms propelled by the Atlantic, rain and plenty of it and none of the unseasonably warm rubbish, quite the opposite in fact. If you like warm Octobers, tough luck, this wasn’t one of ‘em. October was actually a colder than average month. …

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October 2018 Weather in Durham – Very Average

Sunset in Durham Gilesgate in October 2018 with house line silhouetted against a fiery red sky

A very average October this one, mean temperature was +0.1 degC compared to the average in Durham (9.8 degC) and rainfall was spot on average (60.9 mm) for the month. The bulk of the rainfall came in two spells, around the 12th-13th and 27th-30th. There were several ground frosts late in the month as the air flow came from the northerly …

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