July comprised four contrasting periods: much the first week was cool and cloudy, and in parts of eastern England it was also very wet; the second week was hot and sunny over the entire country; the third was dominated by northwesterly winds which brought progressively cooler and cloudy weather although it remained largely dry; the last ten days were remarkably cloudy and cool, and England and Wales were also very wet. The month’s single most newsworthy event was the Birmingham tornado which injured 20 people and caused so much damage to homes in the Kings Heath/Moseley/Balsall Heath districts of the city on the afternoon of the 28th.

The Central England Temperature for July was 16.9°C which is 0.4 degC above 1971-2000 mean – a fraction higher than July 2004, but a fraction lower than July 2003. In the last 100 years there have been 23 warmer Julys – in recent years including 2003 and 2001.

The month’s highest temperature (recorded under standard conditions) of 30.9°C was reported at London’s Heathrow airport on the 14th although slightly higher readings were made at several non-standard and unofficial sites in the Greater London area on the same day, including 31.7°C at the Broadness site between Gravesend and Dartford. It was almost as hot inland in central and northern Scotland on the 11th, with 30.0°C at Glenlivet in Banffshire and 30.3°C at Aberfeldy in Perthshire. This latter figure was higher than anything recorded at that location during the August 2003 heatwave, and therefore probably the highest in the district since 1976.

By contrast, it was exceptionally cool in central and eastern Scotland and much of northeast England during the last ten days of the month, with afternoon maxima in the range 12-15°C on most days. A high of just 10.9°C were recorded at Boltshope Park (Durham) on the 28th and again at Salsburgh (Lanarkshire) on the 29th. The month’s lowest night-time reading to hand was 0.6°C at Braemar, Aberdeenshire, early on the morning of the 31st.

Rainfall, averaged over England and Wales, was 76mm which is 132 per cent of the mean for the standard reference period 1971-2000, similar to the figures for the Julys of 2004 and 2003 – in fact we have not had a drier-than-average July over England and Wales since 1999. In the last 100 years 57 Julys were drier and 43 were wetter. It was a different story elsewhere, however. In Scotland only 54 per cent of the normal quantity of rain fell, the lowest here for five years, and in Northern Ireland there was just 88 per cent.

There were several heavy downpours, some of them associated with thunderstorms, between the 3rd and 6th, and from the 23rd onwards. Milford Haven recorded 73mm in 48 hours on the 27th-28th. During the long settled spell in between, many places had negligible rain for two weeks, and a couple of sites in Yorkshire had 20 consecutive days with no measurable rain from the 7th to the 26th inclusive.

Sunshine over England and Wales totalled 183 hours during July 2005 which is 91 per cent of the 1971-2000 average. The equivalent figure for Scotland was 96 per cent, and for Northern Ireland 81 per cent. The contrasts between the sunny episode mid-month and the dull periods early and late in the month were exceptional. St Helier (Jersey) recorded 191 hours of sunshine in the 15 days from the 6th to the 20th, while Manchester logged just 20 hours of sunshine during the 14 days from the 17th to the 31st.

© Philip Eden