By Philip Eden

July 2004 will go down in history as a pretty average month. Broadly speaking, temperatures were slightly below average, rainfall somewhat above, and sunshine rather below. No important records were broken or even approached, and as so often happens, a lengthy period of cool, rainy weather in the first part of the month was partly offset by drier and warmer conditions during the last week or so.

For anyone who insists that this summer has been the worst in living memory, it should first be pointed out that there is still a month to go before any seasonal post mortem is carried out. But it is true that the poorest weather of the summer so far straddled two calendar months, so here is a consolation statistic for you: the period mid-June to mid-July was the coolest, averaged nationally, since 1981.

Mean maximum temperatures during July ranged from 22.7C at Wisley in Surrey to 13.5C at Fair Isle, between Orkney and Shetland, while mean minima varied between 14.2C at St Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight to 7.8C at Aboyne in Aberdeenshire. The Central England Temperature which incorporates both daytime and overnight readings, was 15.8C, which is 0.7 degC below the average for the standard reference period 1971-2000, and the lowest since 2000. In the last 100 years, 38 Julys were colder, five had the same mean temperature, and 57 were warmer.

Rainfall varied widely, but over a large part of England over half the month’s total fell on a single day, the 7th, and across much of southern England the lack of rain since then means that most gardens here are now dry and dusty. Nevertheless, July’s rainfall, averaged over England and Wales, was 74mm which is 30 per cent above the long-term mean. The equivalent figures for Scotland where it was the driest July for four years were 36mm and 34 per cent below, and for Northern Ireland 61mm and two per cent below. Driest region included Perthshire, Fife and Angus: at Leuchars the month’s total was just 19mm. By contrast Wittering, near Peterborough, collected 153mm (109mm on the 7th/8th alone), the highest July total in this particular district since 1880.

Perhaps the most notable feature of July’s weather was the shortage of sunshine. For England and Wales the month’s total of 177 hours was 10 per cent below normal, whereas in Scotland the total was 145 hours (14 per cent below), and in Northern Ireland 148 hours (two per cent above). At Aviemore in the Highlands, the aggregate sunshine was just 81 hours, some 42 per cent below the local average.There was, however, even less sunshine in July 2002 over a large part of the UK.

(c) Philip Eden