England East & North East 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

In Lincolnshire, part of this region, the storm surge flooded the coast from Mablethorpe to Skegness, reaching 3km inland - part of the same disaster that killed 307 people across Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

Wikipedia

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

The Central England Temperature record, which runs back to 1659, has only two colder winters than 1962-63 - 1683-84 and 1739-40. January 1963 averaged -2.1°C, still the coldest month in that record since January 1814. Snow reached southern England on Boxing Day, with up to 30cm in places.

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

By late August 1976, Leeds had only about 80 days' water supply left - and the drought exposed how fragmented the region's water system was: Leeds faced serious autumn shortages while Bradford, a few miles away, was barely affected.

UK Parliament Hansard

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

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

An intense depression crosses southern Scotland on 25 January 1990, driving severe gales across England and Wales in broad daylight. 47 people are killed - more than twice the toll of the Great Storm of 1987 - around 3 million trees come down and 500,000 people lose power. Damage was heaviest south of a line from west Wales to Suffolk.

Met Office, Royal Meteorological Society

August 1990 UK heatwave breaks 79-year record

1990 was this region's 14th-warmest year by daily maximum in 126 years of regional record, and its 28th-driest. The new UK record of 37.1°C was set at Cheltenham, well to the south-west; eastern and north-eastern England had a hot summer rather than a record-breaking one.

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 →

The autumn 2000 floods

2000 is this region's second wettest year on record at 1,000mm, and the autumn was the wettest England and Wales had seen since records began in 1766. The Ouse at York rose 5.3m above its normal summer level - the worst flooding there in 400 years - with around 5,000 properties affected.

Unda, Met Office

August 2003 European heatwave (UK)

The August 2003 heatwave reaches 31.6°C in Sheffield - a record for the city, not broken until 2022.

Sheffield Weather

Summer 2007 UK floods

Hull was the worst-hit place in the country in summer 2007, with 8,600 homes and 1,300 businesses flooded, and Sheffield the worst hit in Yorkshire - helicopters lifting people from buildings in the city centre. East Yorkshire had already flooded on 15 June.

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

This region's own Heatwave Days count rose from a decade mean of 3.04 days in the 2000s to 7.11 in the 2010s and 9.26 so far in the 2020s - a real acceleration, but the mildest of any English region, with the North Sea moderating summer heat along the coast.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

The December 2013 North Sea storm surge

The 5 December 2013 surge was the largest on England's east coast since 1953, and this region took a large share of it. In Boston, Lincolnshire, defences were overtopped and breached and more than 700 properties flooded; on the Humber, record water levels flooded more than 400 properties in Hull and the East Riding.

Lincolnshire County Council, Hull City Council

UK's post-2013 warmth acceleration

7 of this region's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2013, and 2025 was the warmest of all.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

England and Wales' wettest winter since 1766

Winter 2013-14 (December to February) brought this region 278mm of rain, 146% of the 1961-90 average - its 9th-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

The Boxing Day floods (Storm Eva)

Storm Eva drops a month's rain in a day onto ground already saturated by Storm Desmond three weeks earlier. On 26 December 2015 around 4,000 homes and 2,000 businesses flood across northern England - 2,200 homes in Greater Manchester alone - with parts of Leeds, Calderdale and York under up to 1.8m of water.

Wikipedia, Verisk

2015-2025: the eleven warmest years on record

Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. England East & North East's own record is a looser fit - seven of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2011, 2007 and 2006 outside it. Its warmest year is 2025.

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The Beast from the East

Eastern England took the 2018 easterly first, as Siberian air crossed the North Sea and picked up moisture on the way. Snow drifted across the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire wolds and the A1 and M62 were repeatedly blocked during the cold wave. 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 this region's wettest February in this site's Met Office record from 1900 - 141.5mm, nearly three times its 1961-90 average - as Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge followed one another in on a strong, southward-shifted jet stream. It beat the 117.9mm of February 1900.

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

Storm Arwen

A rare Met Office red warning is issued as Storm Arwen drives northerly gales down the east coast on 26 November 2021. Around 225,000 Scottish properties lose power, some for over a week, three people are killed across the UK, and Scotland's forests take large-scale damage.

Wikipedia, Scottish Government

The UK's first 40°C day

The UK's first 40°C reading was taken in this region: 40.3°C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire on 19 July 2022. Forty-six stations beat the old UK record of 38.7°C that day, and seven passed 40°C for the first time.

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