East Anglia Climate – Sep 2026September 2026 Update

Post-WWII industrial expansion begins

After the Second World War, coal and oil use grew rapidly across Europe, North America and the Soviet Union. Global sulphur dioxide emissions rose from about 30 to about 130 million tonnes a year by 1980, and the sulphate haze they formed masked part of the greenhouse warming underneath - the effect known as 'global dimming'.

Klimont et al. 2013

The North Sea Flood of 1953

Essex, in this region, lost 120 of the 307 people killed in England on the night of 31 January 1953 - more than any other county. Canvey Island alone lost 58 and Jaywick 37, as a surge running 3m above expected sea level broke through the coastal defences.

The Conversation, Royal Meteorological Society, Wikipedia, Wikipedia (2)

UK Clean Air Act

Passed after the Great Smog of December 1952 killed around 12,000 people, the Clean Air Act 1956 created smoke control areas and curbed domestic coal burning across Great Britain - the start of the long fall in British aerosol pollution that later unmasked greenhouse warming.

The National Archives, Clean Air Act 1956, The Clean Air Act 1964 (Appointed Day)…

The Big Freeze of 1962-63

1963 is East Anglia's coldest year in this site's own regional record, and 1962 its third coldest. The sea froze near the coast, the Broads and rivers iced over and coasters were trapped at Reedham; January's mean maximum ran 5°C below average, and Santon Downham near Thetford fell to -19°C on the 23rd.

Wikipedia, Wikipedia (2), Royal Meteorological Society, Norfolk Live

Agung eruption

Agung's eruption in Bali put a veil of sulphate haze into the stratosphere that cooled global temperature by about 0.3°C over 1963-66.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

The 1976 UK drought

East Anglia's topsoil dried out so completely during the 1976 drought that it began turning to dust and blowing off the fields - the most visible sign anywhere in Britain of the driest 16 months in over 200 years.

Royal Meteorological Society, Met Office, Royal Meteorological Society (2)

The North Sea flood of 1978

A surge on the night of 11-12 January 1978 floods the east coast again, twenty-five years after 1953. Norfolk and the Humber take the worst of it, and the defences rebuilt after 1953 are tested for the first time.

Wikipedia

Global SO2 emissions peak

Global sulphur dioxide emissions peak at about 130 million tonnes a year, then begin a long decline as Europe, North America and Japan clean up their air. As the aerosol mask thins, the rate of global warming picks up through the 1980s.

Klimont et al. 2013

The 1981 tornado outbreak

On 23 November 1981, 104 confirmed tornadoes touch down across England and Wales in a single day - the largest tornado outbreak ever recorded in Europe. The worst damage is in Leicester, where hundreds of homes are hit and 24 people are injured as part of a school collapses.

Wikipedia, Wikipedia (2)

El Chichón eruption

A sulphur-rich eruption in Mexico whose aerosol cloud stayed in the stratosphere for more than two years, cooling the Northern Hemisphere by about 0.2°C.

Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program

The Great Storm of 1987

The East Anglian coast was among the most damaged areas of the Great Storm, hit by gusts with a one-in-200-year return period as the system tracked north-east across southern England overnight on 15-16 October 1987.

Wikipedia

The Big Freeze of January 1987

East Anglia was one of the areas worst hit by the January 1987 easterly, alongside South East England and London, as Siberian air crossed a North Sea it had already chilled. Over 50cm of snow fell across the south east, locally 75cm, and Caldecott in Rutland dropped to -23.3°C on the 13th.

Wikipedia, The Weather Outlook

Daytime warming catches up with the night-led pattern

Across 1961-90, 81% of the world's land saw nights warming faster than days. Across 1991-2020 the pattern reversed: 70% saw days warming faster, as the industrial haze that had been dimming daytime sunshine was cleaned up. The study compares two fixed thirty-year windows; measured as a turning point, this site's own global series turns around 1982.

Zhong et al. 2023

The Burns' Day Storm

Suffolk marked the north-eastern end of the storm's worst damage, which ran in a band south of a line from west Wales to Suffolk on 25 January 1990. Elsewhere in the region the gales were severe but the destruction less concentrated.

Met Office, Royal Meteorological Society

August 1990 UK heatwave breaks 79-year record

The August 1990 heatwave reaches 36.5°C at Cambridge Botanic Garden (3 August) - among the highest readings anywhere in the country, just short of the 37.1°C UK record set at Cheltenham the same day.

Wikipedia, history.co.uk, Met Office

Positive NAO phase dominates the 1990s

England shows the weakest and least consistent response of the four nations. The NAO's wet/dry signature is reliable in the north-west, but across central, southern and eastern England it varies considerably from winter to winter - those areas sit in the lee of the uplands, and research finds the separate East Atlantic pattern exerts more influence on their rainfall than the NAO does.

Hurrell 1995, Science, Atmosphere, 2021, Frontiers, 2022NAO Tracker

Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase

The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flipped to a warm phase in 1995. For the UK it is one of the background rhythms sitting underneath the warming trend: warm AMO phases are associated with warmer North Atlantic surface waters on the UK's doorstep, and have been linked to wetter summers in parts of north-west Europe. It is a natural cycle of roughly 60-70 years, so it shifts the baseline rather than driving the long-term trend - which matters when reading any UK record set since the mid-1990s.

Learn more →

August 2003 European heatwave (UK)

Cambridge University Botanic Garden, in this region, went on to take the UK record this heatwave set: 38.5°C at Brogdale in Kent on 10 August 2003 stood for sixteen years until Cambridge reached 38.7°C in July 2019. Excess mortality in 2003 ran 16% above normal across England and Wales.

Met Office / ONS, Impact of the 2003 heat wave on daily…

Summer 2007 UK floods

East Anglia escaped the worst of the 2007 floods, which struck Northern Ireland and Scotland first on 14 June, then Yorkshire and the Midlands, and finally Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and South Wales in late July. England and Wales still recorded 414.1mm from May to July - their wettest such spell since 1766.

Wikipedia / GOV.UK flood cost report, Met Office

Negative NAO blocking cluster, 2009-2013

December 2010 was the second coldest December in the Central England Temperature record, which runs back to 1659 - just 0.1°C short of the all-time record set in 1890. It was England's coldest month of any kind since February 1986, driven by a run of blocked, negative-NAO winters between 2009 and 2013.

4byo, Met Office, WikipediaNAO Tracker

Start of the sustained rise in UK heatwave frequency

East Anglia's own Heatwave Days count rose from a decade mean of 3.50 days in the 2000s to 8.00 in the 2010s, and 15.18 so far in the 2020s - more than four times the 2000s figure, and a steeper climb than England as a whole.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

The December 2013 North Sea storm surge

Spring tides, deep low pressure and gale-force winds drive the worst surge on the east coast since 1953 on 5 December 2013, hitting Hunstanton, Wells, Cley and Hemsby. Damage across Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex reaches an estimated £1 billion, but modern defences largely hold and no lives are lost - though cliffs collapse at Hemsby and homes are lost to the sea.

ITV Anglia, Frontiers in Marine Science (2015)

UK's post-2013 warmth acceleration

8 of East Anglia's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2013, and the warmest of all was 2022 - the same post-2013 clustering seen across the UK, in this region's own record.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

England and Wales' wettest winter since 1766

Winter 2013-14 (December to February) brought England 401mm of rain, 180% of the 1961-90 average - its wettest winter since this site's Met Office regional record begins in 1901. Across England and Wales as a whole it was the wettest winter since the series began in 1766.

Met Office, Kendon et al. 2015, England and Wales Precipitation series

2015-2025: the eleven warmest years on record

Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. East Anglia's own record is a looser fit - seven of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2011, 2006 and 2002 outside it. Its warmest year is 2022.

Learn more →

The Beast from the East

Eastern England took the brunt of the 2018 easterly, with around 28cm of snow falling in parts of Norfolk as Siberian air crossed the North Sea and picked up moisture on the way. It followed a sudden stratospheric warming in mid-February that split the polar vortex.

Wikipedia, Wikipedia (2)Polar Vortex Tracker

Low-sulphur shipping fuel rule (IMO 2020)

New international shipping rules cut the sulphur allowed in ship fuel from 3.5% to 0.5% almost overnight, removing about 8 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year. With less sulphate haze over the oceans, it may have added around 0.1°C of warming by 2023-24.

Gettelman et al. 2024

The UK's wettest February on record, 2020

February 2020 was wet in East Anglia too - 78.7mm, more than double its 1961-90 average - but only its 11th-wettest February in this site's Met Office record from 1900, as the storms' heaviest rain fell further west. East Anglia's wettest February is 2024, with 112.8mm.

Davies et al. (2021), Carbon Brief / Met Office, NOAA CPCPolar Vortex / AO

The UK's first 40°C day

The record broken on 19 July 2022 was East Anglia's own: Cambridge University Botanic Garden had held the UK high of 38.7°C since 25 July 2019, itself beating Faversham's 38.5°C from 2003. Coningsby in Lincolnshire took it to 40.3°C.

Met Office review (via Carbon Brief), Met Office, Wikipedia, Met Office (2)