Local Forecasts, History & Records
Spring Weather in Durham UK
May 2025 started with a bang. After the heat peaked at the end of April, the 1st May was the warmest ever for that date in the UK. Kew Gardens reached 29.3 degC, closely followed by Wisley and Chertsey at 29.2 degC. We all thought the earliest May day to record the magic 30 degrees was going to be shattered …
A superb start and end to April April 2025 opened superbly, with perfect blue skies and reasonable temperatures for early Spring. There was a nagging Easterly wind though; the position of the stable high pressure cell was feeding air from a chilly direction, meaning that it was warm in the sun as long as you were out of the breeze. …
March 2025 was a little above average temperature-wise. The Grassland temperature sum (the sustainable start of vegetation growth in Europe) reached 200 on March 7th 2025. This was 12 days later than the previous year, mainly due to the coldness of January 2025, which was on the colder side of average. The mean temperature was pegged back a bit by …
May 2024 was classed as ‘very mild’, with the mean a full 2.5 degC above the average, and the mean minimum an extraordinary 4.5 degC above the average. The mean minimum was actually in double figures, something usually reserved for the summer months. Most of the mildness came in the first half of the month, with the warmest temperature (25.0 …
Wet and mild first half, then drier and colder April 2024 kept the soggy theme going and opened rather wet. 13.5mm of rain fell on the 3rd. The gardens were looking very waterlogged. On Saturday 6th April we were hit by Storm Kathleen, although not as badly as the North West corner of the country, but bad enough. On 8th …
April 1917 – Perishingly cold at Durham Towards the end of World War 1, with fighting still going on in the trenches of France, April 1917 was quite extraordinary and was the coldest April recorded at Durham. The mean temperature for the month was 4.4C, which is -3.9C when compared to the 1990-2010 normal for April. This was 0.1C colder …
March 2024 The month was very much on the mild side, with little in the way of air frost (1 day). The maximum temperatures were disappointing, getting nowhere near the 20 degC mark that is always within reach in March. However March 2024 was 1.3C warmer than March 2023. The reason the month felt so damp was that the rainfall …
May 2023 starts in showery mood May 2023 started in a showery mood on 1st, with heavy rain and a sharp drop in temperature just after lunch. The thermometer dropped from 15.4 degC at 13:31 to 9.8 degC just an hour later. On 9th there were some very heavy showers, especially around mid-day, yielding 8.6mm in total for the day. …
Outdoor Sensor Failure Unfortunately I experienced a failure of the weather station outdoor sensor this month so I have limited direct statistics. Air pressure and rainfall were still recorded, but outside temperatures and humidity were not available from the 6th April 2023. A new sensor was fitted on 26th April, but it needs to be left to ‘soak’ to reach …
Where is Spring in Durham, I hear you ask? That is a question that is being asked more often on social media at the moment and i’m thinking the same thing. We’re getting very used to these mild winter temperatures, but Springs seem to come late. March 2023 can only be described as disappointing. It was pretty cold up to …
Temperature The warmer than normal theme in 2022 continued into May, with a mean of 12.8 degC being +1.8 degC above the long term 1991-2020 normal. May 2022 was a full 3.0 degC warmer than May last year. The peak of the temperature was a modest 22.5 degC reached in mid-month. The thermometer only passed 20 degC on four occasions …
Temperature April 2022 was a very unremarkable month, temperature-wise. The mean came in at 8.7 degC, which is only very slightly above the 1991-2020 average (8.3). After hitting 20 degC in March 2022, the top temp for April could only reach 18.9 degC on 17th. This is modest. Early in the month, so often the case for April, there was …