{"id":6997,"date":"2026-09-07T21:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/?p=6997"},"modified":"2026-09-07T21:39:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T20:39:41","slug":"uk-weather-tracker-latest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marriott-stats.com\/nigels-blog\/uk-weather-tracker-latest\/","title":{"rendered":"UK Weather Tracker #115 – August 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The weather in the UK in August was the 6th warmest and 10th sunniest on record but with normal rainfall.\u00a0 That might surprise those living in areas with hosepipe bans but whilst there have been significant regional variations in rainfall, collectively the regions added up to normal rainfall.\u00a0 The other point is that the warmest summer on record was achieved without any individual month breaking new records.\u00a0 Instead this came about from the combination of the 2nd warmest June & July and 6th warmest August.<\/p>\n

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The Latest Month’s Weather in 8 Charts<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

The meteorological year starts in December which is why December appears as the 1st data point in the charts below.\u00a0 All data is supplied by the Met Office and can be found here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0The dashboard below shows charts for 7 weather variables and a summary index as a single graphic.\u00a0 The middle bottom block explains why some data points are in black, points out the charts for Sunshine & Frost are swapped around according to the seasons and how the abnormality index (see next section) is calculated.<\/p>\n

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In July 2025<\/a>, the Met Office extended their historical frost days data back to 1931.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How abnormal was August 2026?<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Chart H displays my UK Weather Abnormality Index<\/strong><\/span> (see my May 2019 post for details<\/a>).\u00a0 The closer to zero this index is, the less abnormal and thus more “average<\/em>” a month is.\u00a0 The higher it is, the more abnormal the month is.\u00a0 When the index is over 100%<\/strong>, we can describe the month as unusual in some way.<\/p>\n

The abnormality index was 61% <\/strong>this month which is just above the median<\/p>\n

Regional Variations – Summer 2026<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

\"\"August marks the end of the meteorological summer.\u00a0 I do not track regional statistics every month but I do track temperature by season for each region so I can update the regional temperature chart here.<\/p>\n

This shows the Z-Score for each region for the 2026 summer<\/strong>.\u00a0 A Z-Score is simply the regional temperature minus the long term average for that region divided by the long term standard deviation for that region.\u00a0 Doing this, gets around the issue of each region being different on average whereas z-scores all have the same scale, namely number of standard deviations above or below the long term average.<\/p>\n

The 2026 summer was the warmest<\/strong> on record nationwide.\u00a0 Relative to their long term averages, this was also the case for England, Wales and Northern Ireland but not Scotland.\u00a0 For more details about the 2026 summer, click on the link provided in the list below.<\/p>\n

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PS: If you bookmark this link<\/a>, it will be refreshed with the latest month’s data.\u00a0 I usually post the update in the first week of each month.<\/em><\/p>\n

Click the relevant month below to see what the weather was back then.\u00a0 Months highlighted in bold had an abnormality index exceeding 100%<\/strong> indicating unusual weather.\u00a0 Alternatively click the Weather Tracker<\/a> hash tag below this post to see a list of all such posts.<\/p>\n