1976 Summer is Still the Hottest Since 1659 in Central England
2022 comes in a measly 6th place
The world’s longest running temperature series, dating back to 1659, still ranks 1976 as the hottest summer ever in terms of mean temperature. 2022 is not even in the top 5.
Which is a bit surprising given that the Met Office’s gridded temperature dataset, going back to 1884, ranks 2022 as the joint warmest along with 2018.
It’s surprising given that central/eastern England was the area most affected by the extreme high temperatures on July 19th. But the Central England dataset uses only a handful of stations whereas the Met Office’s gridded dataset covers many more. Even so, there’ quite a large discrepancy. 1976 is far and away the hottest summer ever in the long running Central England dataset and 1826 is not far behind. The gridded dataset only goes back as far as 1884, so 1826 is missing from it. What might be the cause of this discrepancy?
My guess is that the few stations used to construct CET are not seriously affected by urban heat island effects, whereas a large number of stations in the gridded dataset are probably significantly affected by urban encroachment. The Met office corrects for UHI, but I do not believe the correction is adequate.
So anyway, summer 1976 still reigns supreme in the world’s longest running temperature dataset, which is as it should be. You probably won’t hear that from the Met Office or the lame stream media though.
I very agree with you very much about the adjustment for UHI being inadequate. Here in Scotland (central Highlands) there were a few hot days, but 33C is not that unusual, we have temps in the low 30s for a day or two just about every year. Tiree had a cool and damp summer, lots of fog / mist all through June and July. North-west of Scotland also had very indifferent weather, rain most days in first few weeks of July. Whether this will be registered in the UK dataset is open to question.