Midlands 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

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 the Midlands' coldest year in this site's own regional record, and 1962 its third coldest - the only two years below 8°C in more than a century of data. Snow lay for weeks and rivers froze across the region during the coldest winter since at least 1895 in every UK meteorological district.

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

1975 was the Midlands' fourth driest year on record at 597mm, and it was only the first half of the drought - the dry spell ran from May 1975 right through to August 1976, the driest 16 months across the UK in over 200 years.

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

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 Big Freeze of January 1987

The Midlands recorded the lowest temperature of the entire 1987 cold wave: -23.3°C at Caldecott in Rutland on 13 January. The heaviest snow fell further south and east, but in the region's own record 1987 is the 14th-coldest year by daily maximum in 126 years and its 10th-snowiest of the 44 years with snow data.

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

The Midlands sat on the northern edge of the Burns' Day Storm's worst damage, which ran in a band south of a line from west Wales to Suffolk. Gusts were damaging across the region and power was lost widely, but the deaths and the heaviest structural damage were concentrated further south.

Met Office, Royal Meteorological Society

August 1990 UK heatwave breaks 79-year record

The record that fell in 1990 was partly a Midlands one: the 36.7°C that had stood since August 1911 was set at Raunds in Northamptonshire, as well as at Epsom and Canterbury. The new 37.1°C came at Cheltenham, just outside the region. In the Midlands' own series 1990 is the 12th-warmest year by daily maximum in 126 years and its 10th-highest for heatwave days.

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)

2003 was the Midlands' 7th-warmest year by daily maximum in 126 years of regional record - and, more unusually, its 6th-driest, at 611 mm. The UK record of 38.5°C was set at Brogdale in Kent, well to the south-east, but the summer's combination of heat and drought was felt across the Midlands.

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

The Birmingham tornado

An IF3 tornado tears through the southern and eastern suburbs of Birmingham on the afternoon of 28 July 2005, stripping roofs and felling trees along its track. It remains the costliest tornado ever recorded in Great Britain.

Wikipedia

Summer 2007 UK floods

The Midlands flooded twice in the summer of 2007 - first on 15 June, then again on 25 June - as the Severn and Avon reached record levels through Worcestershire and Warwickshire. More than 55,000 homes and businesses flooded across England over the summer, at a cost of about £6.5 billion.

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

The Midlands' own Heatwave Days count rose from a decade mean of 2.85 days in the 2000s to 8.85 in the 2010s - a threefold jump, the sharpest single-decade step of any English region - and stands at 12.78 so far in the 2020s.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

UK's post-2013 warmth acceleration

8 of the Midlands' 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2013, and 2025 was the warmest of all - the same post-2013 clustering seen across the UK, in the region's own record.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

England and Wales' wettest winter since 1766

2014 was the Midlands' 15th-wettest year in 126 years of regional record and its 5th-warmest by daily maximum - the mild, wet, westerly pattern that drove the record England and Wales winter showed here as an exceptionally frost-free year, with 26.9 air-frost days, the 2nd-fewest ever recorded in the region.

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. The Midlands' own record is a looser fit - seven of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2011, 2006 and 1990 outside it. Its warmest year is 2025.

Learn more →

The Beast from the East

The Midlands sat on the southern edge of the Beast from the East's heaviest snow, which fell hardest over the south-west and the east coast. The region's 2018 snow total ranks only 30th of 44 years - the cold snap was severe but short, and 2018 finished as the Midlands' 8th-warmest year by daily maximum. 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 the Midlands' wettest February in this site's Met Office record from 1900 - 162.0mm, 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 141.4mm of February 1977.

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

The UK's first 40°C day

2022 is the Midlands' 2nd-warmest year in 126 years of regional record, by both daily maximum and mean, beaten only by 2025. The UK's first 40°C reading came at Coningsby in Lincolnshire, on the region's eastern edge, with 40.2°C at Heathrow the same day.

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