Warm and wet, but October is no thriller

Early Met Office figures up to the 28^th of October show it has been a warm and rather wet month compared to average, but it’s not going to break any records.

The UK mean temperature for the month so far is 11.0C, which is 1.5C above the long-term (1981-2010) average.

While well above average, that’s well short of the record of 12.2C set in 2001 and would currently rank 11^th warmest in our digitised national records dating back to 1910.

Last year’s October (11.2C), and that of 2011 (11.3C), were both warmer than this year’s early figure.

As ever there are regional variations within the UK for this year, with the far north west of the UK hardly above normal while much of England has seen mean temperatures around 2C above normal.

This October continues the theme of above average temperatures for 2014. Nine out of the ten months this year have seen above average mean temperatures, with only August having been below average.

It’s a similar story with UK rainfall in that it is wetter than average, but with no chance of breaking any records.

There has been 148.1mm of rain for the UK up to the 28^th of the month, which is 116% of the long-term full-month average (you’d expect about 91% of the average after 28 days in a ‘normal’ month).

This would rank it around mid-table in the records – nowhere near the October record of 194.8mm set in 2000. While the rainfall will go up when the final few days are added, it’s not going to top that.

Again there are regional variations, with some parts of Scotland, the Isle of Man and Cumbria much wetter than average while some parts are slightly drier than average.

Sunshine hasn’t been too remarkable, with figures below average for most areas.

© Met Office