The hottest SUMMER in Coventry and Warwickshire since at least 1892

An historical perspective on the climate statistics
for Coventry during Summer 2006

Summer 2006 has been the hottest on record in Coventry, but despite
this it still doesn't compare with the summers of 1976 or even 1995
with respect to rainfall and sunshine.

Temperature

Although it was a summer of two halves, with the hottest June and July
on record, followed by the coolest August in 7 years, this summer will
go down in the record books as the best ever, if we just take average
temperatures into account that is.

With a mean summer temperature of 18.0C, 2C above the 30-year city
average, the summer of 2006 was 0.1C warmer than the previous record of
both 1911 and 1995.

Five days recorded maximum temperatures over 30C, the highest number of
such hot days since 1995 (10), with the most registered in 1976 (13).

There were 22 very warm days (26C) in the summer of 2006, compared to
31 in 1976 and 30 in 1911.

69 days were classified as "warm" (20C), the most since 1976 but
still short of the 78 warm days in 1893.

· The hottest day of summer (34.4C on 19th July) was the second
hottest summer day on record, only exceeded by 35.0C in 1990.



Rainfall

With a summer rainfall total of 185.7mm, this was the driest summer in
our region since 2003 (127.4mm).

Summer 2006 will not be remembered for its dryness however, with just
49 dry days compared to 73 in 1976 and 69 as recently as 1995, when
only 4608mm of rain fell all summer!

Sunshine

It was the sunniest summer in Coventry (650.7 hours) since 1996
(699.5hr).

With sunshine records for the city dating back to 1894, only 11 summers
have recorded more sunshine than 2006.

Steve J
BWS
Covntry