Local Forecasts, History & Records
Autumn weather in Durham UK, constituted of the months of September, October and November
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 …
Apologies for the late posting of September’s report. September 2021 continued the warm summer theme into autumn. There wasn’t exactly an abundance of sunshine, but it had a very pleasant feel to it. As is usual with September, the temperatures don’t really start to drop away until the very end, and this year was no exception. However, this was the …
Just after the end of WW1, September 1919 was an unusual month as it went from a late summer heatwave to early winter snowfall in the space of just a few days. A hot southerly flow had allowed temperatures to climb as high as 32.2C at Raunds on the 11th September 1919. However by the 12th, the wind flow switched …
Forgive me for saying it, but I found the weather of November 2020 quite boring in Durham. There were no real extremes of temperature, no extremely wet days and even the normally strong and boisterous autumn winds had little to say for themselves in November 2020. The month began with low pressure in charge, dropping 10.1mm of rain in the …
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 …
Here’s what happened in September 2020. After a wet day on the 2nd, September weather was quite decent until the 22nd. There was a short heatwave in mid-month when the temperature hit a lovely 26.6 degC. Towards the end of the month the weather turned very Autumnal indeed. Temps plummeted after the deluge on 23rd, and the maximum temperature on …
Cold, Wet and Cheerless Once again I have poor weather to report for this month in Durham. There were particularly high rainfall totals again and an incredible dullness that depressed the soul. I know that November is sometimes a cheerless month, but this one has been really rubbish. The weather has also been cold, with depressed maxima by day, although …
Here’s a graphic released by the Met Office, attempting to illustrate the wet weather we’ve had in the first half of November 2019. Now, the first half of November has been pretty wet. In fact 85mm of rain has fallen on Gilesgate since the start of November, continuing the soggy 6 months we’ve had. I looked at the map and …
Wonderful Autumn colours and views across to Durham Cathedral and Castle from Wharton Park, just before Halloween
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. …
The headline says it all. September 2019 was really dry and quite pleasant for the first three weeks before the rains came back. Only 8.1mm fell in the first three weeks, as pressure remained high. Remarkable that the total for the month ended up at 81.0mm, making it a ‘wet’ month overall. That just shows how monthly statistics can completely …
As is usual at this time of year, there is much speculation about the winter to come. After the brief episode of snow at the end of October 2018, the usual suspects were predicting a snowy November. As is nearly always the case, the snowy November didn’t happen. Temperatures were mild in the first half of the month, and stayed …