Scotland North Climate – Sep 2026September 2026 Update

Scotland's coldest-ever temperatures (Braemar/Altnaharra)

Altnaharra in Sutherland, in this region, recorded -27.2°C on 30 December 1995 - equalling Braemar's 1895 and 1982 readings as the lowest temperature ever measured in the UK.

Met Office

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

Orkney and Shetland were badly hit as the 1953 surge crossed between them, and on the Moray Firth the fishing village of Crovie was abandoned after buildings were swept into the sea. Nineteen people died in eastern Scotland that night.

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

UK Clean Air Act

Scotland was covered by the Clean Air Act 1956, which carried its own schedule of adapted Scottish provisions, bringing smoke control areas and curbs on domestic coal burning - 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

Achany in Sutherland fell to -19.4°C on 11 January 1963 during the coldest winter since at least 1895 in every UK meteorological district. Northern Scotland's own coldest year on record, though, is 1979 - unlike England, where 1963 still holds that place.

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

The 1976 drought was an English and Welsh event far more than a Scottish one. Scotland North's 1976 ranks only 21st-driest in 126 years of regional record, and its summer temperatures were unremarkable - the blocking high that baked southern England sat too far south to dry the far north.

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

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 UK's strongest recorded wind

A gust of 173mph (150.3 knots) is recorded at Cairn Gorm summit on 20 March 1986 - the strongest wind ever measured in the United Kingdom. The low-level record followed three years later: 142mph at Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire on 13 February 1989.

The Sunday Post

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 depression that became the Burns' Day Storm crossed southern Scotland on the morning of 25 January 1990. Its most damaging winds struck further south as it moved away to the south-east, killing 47 people - more than twice the toll of the Great Storm of 1987 - and bringing down around 3 million trees.

Met Office, Royal Meteorological Society

August 1990 UK heatwave breaks 79-year record

Northern Scotland saw little of the August 1990 heat, which concentrated on southern, central and eastern England. Scotland's own highest reading of the spell was 30.8°C at Leuchars, on the Fife coast.

Wikipedia, history.co.uk, Met Office

Positive NAO phase dominates the 1990s

Scotland feels a positive NAO more strongly and more reliably than anywhere else in the UK. The strengthened south-westerly flow of the 1990s drove moist Atlantic air straight onto the western uplands, where orographic uplift turns it into rain - which is why western Scotland records the highest totals of any part of Britain in these winters.

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

The New Year's Day storm of 1992

Widely regarded as the most powerful storm to hit the UK in reliable records, the New Year's Day storm of 1992 strikes Scotland hardest and the Northern Isles hardest of all. Shetland takes widespread structural damage and two people are killed.

Wikipedia

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 is Scotland North's 4th-warmest year in 126 years of regional record and its 2nd-warmest by daily maximum. The UK record of 38.5°C was set at Brogdale in Kent, some 550 miles to the south, but the summer was exceptional this far north too.

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

Summer 2007 UK floods

Scotland was among the first places hit when the summer 2007 floods began on 14 June. Two months of flooding followed, falling hardest further south: across the UK it killed 13 people, flooded more than 55,000 homes and businesses and caused about £6.5 billion of damage.

Wikipedia / GOV.UK flood cost report, Met Office

Negative NAO blocking cluster, 2009-2013

Altnaharra in Sutherland fell to -21.3°C on 2 December 2010 - the coldest temperature recorded anywhere in the UK that winter - as blocked, negative-NAO conditions steered Arctic air south.

4byo, Met Office, WikipediaNAO Tracker

Start of the sustained rise in UK heatwave frequency

Northern Scotland's own Heatwave Days count moved little between the 2000s and 2010s - 4.27 to 5.10 - then jumped to 12.27 so far in the 2020s, the sharpest late acceleration anywhere in the UK from the slowest start.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

UK's post-2013 warmth acceleration

5 of northern Scotland's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2013 - the weakest post-2013 clustering of any UK region, and a reminder that the national signal is not evenly spread.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

2015-2025: the eleven warmest years on record

Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. In Scotland North the pattern is weaker: only four of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2011, 2007, 2006, 2004, 2003 and 1997 outside it. Its warmest year is 2025. The warming is in Scotland North's record; it simply arrives in a different order.

Learn more →

Scotland's wettest winter on record, 2015-16

Winter 2015-16 (December to February) brought this region 735mm of rain, 163% of the 1961-90 average - its 5th-wettest winter since this site's Met Office regional record begins in 1901. Scotland as a whole had its wettest winter on record, at 737 mm.

State of the Coast (Scotland) / Met…, Met Office UK regional series (Scotland

The Beast from the East

Shetland and Orkney both recorded their coldest March day on record during the 'Beast from the East', as Siberian air spread across the whole of Scotland. Two deaths were reported in Scotland. 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 brought northern Scotland 291.1mm of rain, two and a half times its 1961-90 average and its 4th-wettest February in this site's Met Office record from 1900 - as Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge followed one another in on a strong, southward-shifted jet stream. Its wettest remains February 1990, with 327.5mm.

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

Northern Scotland stayed well clear of the July 2022 extremes. Scotland's own record that spell, 35.1°C, was set at Floors Castle in the Borders, far to the south, as England passed 40°C for the first time.

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