October record as temperatures soar

A group of women share a picnic in the autumn sunshine next to the London Eye

Published: 5:37pm, 31st October 2011
Updated: 1:33am, 1st November 2011

Temperatures soared in October with a record high for the month of 29.9C.

The top temperature was recorded on October 1 in Swanscombe, Kent, which basked in 165 hours of sunshine this month, an average of more than five a day.

The previous hottest October day was 29.4C, recorded in Cambridgeshire in 1985.

Overall, Britain enjoyed its warmest October for five years and its seventh warmest since records began, according to weather historian Philip Eden, for MeteoGroup, the weather division of the Press Association.

The balmy autumn was relatively dry too, with average rainfall of 64mm for the month and less than 20mm in the East Midlands, East Anglia and the north Home Counties.

This made it drier than three out of four of the last 100 Octobers.

It was sunnier than three-quarters of all Octobers in the last 100 years, with an average of 123 hours of sunshine for England and Wales, and 69 hours for Scotland.

The average maximum temperature for October ranged from 18.1C at Heathrow, Kew Gardens, St James's Park and Olympic Park South in London to 10.5C at Dalwhinnie, Inverness-shire.

The Midlands enjoyed a 3.5C boost to its average and most regions saw a rise of 1.5C to 2.5C.

Mean minimum temperature varied from 12.8C at St Catherine's Point on the Isle of Wight and Portland in Dorset to 6.3C at Loch Glascarnoch and Elphin.