The last ‘coldest’ instance for each month at Durham
As some of you might have noticed, the World is getting warmer. As that happens, statistically we begin to notice that the distribution of cold/warm months are no longer scattered equally amongst the temperature record. The cold months get less frequent, whilst the warm months are more recently distributed.
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I first visited this on my post about long standing CET records.
I thought it would be interesting to tabulate when the last ‘coldest’ and ‘warmest’ occasion for each month on the Durham record was.
Coldest Months at Durham
January 1795
February 1855
March 1883
April 1837
May 1869
June 1888
July 1802
August 1912
September 1840
October 1896
November 1807
December 1878
As can be seen, most of the ‘coldest’ instances for each month are way back, more than a century ago. The coldest January was way back in 1795, and the most recent example of a ‘coldest’ month was August 1912. The top temperature in August 1912 was just 19 degC.
In a warming world, it will now be very unlikely that any of these ‘coldest’ records will be beaten in the near future. The closest we came was probably December 2010, which came close to beating December 1878.
Out of interest, here’s the Warmest months as well.
Warmest Months at Durham
January 1916
February 1998
March 1938
April 2011
May 2024
June 1846
July 2006
August 1975
September 2006
October 2001
November 1818
December 2015
The ‘warmest’ months are much more recent (with a couple of exceptions). The most recent ‘warmest’ month was May 2024. The two longest lasting records are from June 1846 and November 1818. It is extraordinary that these two records remain. It’s also quite surprising that the January record is also more than 100 years old, and the March record is also nearly as stubborn.
My prediction is that all four of these long standing records will fall within the next 5 years.
