England NW & North Wales 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

UK Clean Air Act

The first major clean-air legislation in Great Britain, passed after London's Great Smog of December 1952 killed around 12,000 people. It created smoke control areas and cut domestic coal burning, beginning the long decline in UK and European aerosol emissions. It did not extend to Northern Ireland.

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

The Big Freeze of 1962-63

Snow reached 15cm deep in Manchester city centre and 23cm in Wythenshawe during the same winter - part of the UK-wide coldest since at least 1895.

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

1976 gave this region 23.5 heatwave days - more than any other year in its 1950-2025 record - alongside its 15th-driest year of 126. The north-west and north Wales are among the wettest parts of Britain, which is precisely why a summer like 1976 registers so strongly here: reservoirs and upland soils that never normally run short did.

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

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 late April snowstorm of 1981

An exceptionally late snowstorm crosses Britain between 23 and 26 April 1981, dropping over 30cm widely across the Midlands, southern England, Wales and the north west. Drifts reach six metres in Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and Birmingham's temperature fails to climb above 3°C for three days.

Wikipedia

The 1981 tornado outbreak

The largest tornado outbreak ever recorded in Europe began in this region. On the morning of 23 November 1981 the first tornado touched down at Rhosgoch on Anglesey and tracked towards Amlwch, and minutes later the strongest of the day, rated F2, damaged 20 houses in Holyhead. Over the next five and a half hours 104 tornadoes touched down across Wales and England.

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 19th-warmest year by daily maximum in 126 years of regional record. The record-breaking heat of early August was concentrated across southern, central and eastern England - the north-west and north Wales sat on the cooler, cloudier side of it.

Wikipedia, history.co.uk, Met Office

Positive NAO phase dominates the 1990s

This is NAO country. North-west England and north Wales face the Atlantic squarely, and the strengthened south-westerlies of the 1990s hit the Cumbrian and Snowdonian uplands first - the north west is where the NAO's wet/dry signature is strongest and most consistent anywhere in Britain.

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

The Towyn coastal flood

Gale-force winds meet a high spring tide on 26 February 1990 and breach the sea wall at Towyn on the north Wales coast. Ten square kilometres flood, 2,800 properties are affected and around 6,000 people are evacuated - one of the largest peacetime evacuations in Wales.

North Wales Live, SurgeWatch

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 wettest year on record at 1,690mm, during the wettest autumn England and Wales had seen since the rainfall series began in 1766.

Unda, Met Office

August 2003 European heatwave (UK)

The August 2003 heatwave reaches 33.0°C at Valley, Anglesey (5 August), in this region's North Wales half - beating Wales's previous record of 32.8°C, set in 1948; Liverpool's own record (34.5°C, set in 1990) was not broken.

North Wales Live

The Carlisle flood of 2005

175mm of rain falls on Cumbria in 36 hours in January 2005, putting much of Carlisle under water and killing three people. The River Eden's peak here stood as the record until Storm Desmond beat it by over half a metre ten years later.

Cumberland Council, Whitehaven News

Summer 2007 UK floods

May-July 2007 brought this region 450mm of rain, its wettest such spell in a record going back to 1900. The worst of the summer's flooding fell outside it, in Yorkshire, the Midlands and Gloucestershire, but across England and Wales it was the wettest May-July since the series began in 1766.

Met Office

The November 2009 Cumbria floods

Seathwaite in Cumbria records 314.4mm of rain in 24 hours in November 2009 - an England record at the time - and Cockermouth and Workington flood severely. The record stood six years, until Storm Desmond's 341.4mm at nearby Honister Pass.

Whitehaven News, Met Office

Negative NAO blocking cluster, 2009-2013

December 2010 was the UK's coldest December since Met Office records began, at a national mean of -1°C. This region sat under the same blocked, negative-NAO pattern, with heavy lying snow across the Pennines and Snowdonia through the month.

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 4.32 days in the 2000s to 8.31 in the 2010s and 12.47 so far in the 2020s. It started from the highest 2000s base in England and Wales but has climbed less steeply since than regions further south.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

UK's post-2013 warmth acceleration

7 of this region's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2013, with 2023 the warmest.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

England and Wales' wettest winter since 1766

Winter 2013-14 (December to February) brought this region 582mm of rain, 167% of the 1961-90 average - its 3rd-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

Storm Desmond, December 2015

New UK all-time records for 24-hour rainfall (341.1mm at Honister, Cumbria) and 48-hour rainfall (405mm at Thirlmere, Cumbria). Over 5,200 properties flooded across Cumbria and Lancashire; worst-hit towns include Carlisle, Kendal, Keswick, Cockermouth.

World Weather Attribution

2015-2025: the eleven warmest years on record

Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. England NW & North Wales's own record is a looser fit - six of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2011, 2007, 2006 and 1999 outside it. Its warmest year is 2023.

Learn more →

The Beast from the East

The north-west and north Wales sat on the sheltered side of the Beast from the East. The Siberian easterly loses its moisture crossing the Pennines and the Welsh uplands, so the heaviest falls went to the east coast and - when Storm Emma arrived from the opposite direction - to Gloucestershire and south Wales. 2018's snow total here ranks only 24th of the 44 years in this site's snow record, well behind 1995, 1996 and 2014. 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

February 2020 floods (Storms Ciara & Dennis)

Wales has its wettest February since records began in 1862, and Storms Ciara and Dennis bring the worst flooding since December 1979 - often to the same communities. The Taff at Pontypridd reaches its highest level since records began in 1968 and the Usk breaks its 1994 record; over 3,000 properties flood, at a cost above £81 million.

Natural Resources Wales

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 - 293.2mm, more than 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 242.0mm of February 2002.

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

Storm Christoph floods, January 2021

Storm Christoph's heaviest rain falls across north Wales and northern England on 19-21 January 2021, forcing around 2,000 families from their homes in Manchester, Merseyside and Wrexham. The Dee at Bangor-on-Dee reaches a record level, and Honister in Cumbria records 123.8 mm of rain in a day.

Met Office, FloodList

The UK's first 40°C day

Wales' national temperature record was set inside this region - 37.1°C at Hawarden Airport in Flintshire on 18 July 2022, beating the 35.2°C that had stood at Hawarden Bridge since 1990. England took the UK past 40°C for the first time the next day.

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

The New Year Mersey floods

170mm of rain falls in 18 hours across Greater Manchester over New Year 2024-25, and the Mersey reaches 3.71m at Northenden - its highest level in 66 years. A major incident is declared on 1 January, and more than 1,000 people leave their homes in Didsbury, Northenden and Harpurhey.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Wikipedia