Scotland West 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

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

Glasgow had its first white Christmas since 1938 as the winter of 1962-63 set in - the coldest winter since at least 1895 in every UK meteorological district, with rivers, lochs and even stretches of sea freezing over.

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 Glasgow Hurricane

Hurricane-force winds gusting to 130mph cross Glasgow and central Scotland overnight on 14-15 January 1968, killing 20 people. Over 300 Glasgow houses are destroyed and 70,000 damaged - half the city's council stock - with damage across Scotland put at £30 million at 1968 prices. It is still described as Scotland's worst natural disaster in living memory.

Wikipedia, ScotlandsPeople

The 1976 UK drought

Glasgow had its driest spell since 1868 during the 1976 drought - the western end of a dry summer that was, UK-wide, the culmination of the driest 16 months 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

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

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

Western Scotland saw little of the August 1990 heat. Scotland's highest reading of the spell, 30.8°C, came at Leuchars on the east coast, where the offshore breeze that cools the east in winter works the other way in summer.

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

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.

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August 2003 European heatwave (UK)

2003 is Scotland West's 9th-warmest year in 126 years of regional record and its 5th-warmest by daily maximum - and, unusually for the wettest part of Britain, its 13th-driest. The UK record of 38.5°C that summer was set at Brogdale in Kent.

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

Scotland West had its 3rd-coldest year by minimum temperature in 126 years of regional record in 2010, and its 11th-driest - blocked, negative-NAO winters cut off the mild Atlantic south-westerlies this region normally depends on. The UK's lowest reading that winter, -21.3°C, was at Altnaharra in Sutherland, well to the north.

4byo, Met Office, WikipediaNAO Tracker

Start of the sustained rise in UK heatwave frequency

Western Scotland's own Heatwave Days count rose from a decade mean of 3.66 days in the 2000s to 6.12 in the 2010s, then more than doubled again to 13.09 so far in the 2020s - a later, sharper acceleration than southern Britain saw.

Met Office, State of the UK Climate

UK's post-2013 warmth acceleration

6 of western Scotland's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2013, with 2025 the warmest - a real clustering, though looser than in England, where it runs to 8 of 10.

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 West the pattern is weaker: only five of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2007, 2006, 2004, 2003 and 1949 outside it. Its warmest year is 2025. The warming is in Scotland West's record; it simply arrives in a different order.

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Scotland's wettest winter on record, 2015-16

Winter 2015-16 (December to February) brought this region 858mm of rain, 184% of the 1961-90 average - its 2nd-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

Drumalbin near Lanark took 49cm of snow in the 'Beast from the East' - a March snowfall record for the area - and Glasgow and Ayr both recorded their coldest March day on record. 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 western Scotland 330.2mm of rain, nearly three times its 1961-90 average - its second-wettest February in this site's Met Office record from 1900, just 0.6mm behind February 1990 - as Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge followed one another in on a strong, southward-shifted jet stream.

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

The UK's first 40°C day

Western 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, while England took the UK past 40°C for the first time.

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

Storm Éowyn

The UK's highest gust in Storm Éowyn came in this region - 100mph at Drumalbin, Lanarkshire, on 24 January 2025 - as the Central Belt took the brunt of the storm under a Met Office red warning. The Met Office called it the UK's most powerful windstorm for over a decade.

Wikipedia, Met Office, Met Office (2)