The provisional statistics for June 2018 would suggest that it has been indeed a "Flaming June". Contrary to belief, the phrase "Flaming June" was the title of a late-Victorian painting by the artist Frederic Lord Leighton which he completed in 1895 - over a year before his death. The origin of the phrase has nothing to do with early Summer heat as popular belief would tell you. Despite this, the phrase comes into our conscience when we're experiencing a hot, dry spell in June. Just thought I'd tell you that little bit of history there and now let's get onto the provisional weather stats for the UK in June 2018.
As you've seen from my previous blog posts, June 2018 was the warmest June on record at Irish stations, Shannon Airport and Claremorris. The UK provisional stats for June 2018 show that the month was the warmest June on record for Northern Ireland and Wales with records going back to 1910. Northern Ireland's provisional mean temperature for June 2018 was 14.9°C, an anomaly of +2.1°C above the 1981-2010 average. For comparison, Northern Ireland's previous warmest June record was 1970 with a mean temperature of 14.6°C. Wales' provisional mean temperature for June 2018 was 15.4°C, an anomaly of +2.2°C above the 1981-2010 average. For comparison, Wales' previous warmest June record was 1940 with a mean temperature of 15.0°C. For Scotland and England, it was the 4th warmest June on record back to 1910. The UK mean maximum temperature for June 2018 of 19.9°C equaled that of June 1976. Only June 1940 had a higher mean maximum temperature for the UK with a value of 20.6°C.
Scotland had fairly close to average rainfall for June 2018 overall though it had a very dry period for the first week and a half with little to no rain courtesy of a blocking area of high pressure. Northern Ireland had 64% of its average June rainfall during the month resulting in the driest June here since 2006. Back to 1910, June 2018 ranks in the top 5 driest Junes on record for England and Wales and it was the driest June since 1925. Southeast and central southern England had only 6% of their average June rainfall. Essex, Dorset and Middlesex provisionally all had their driest June on record; Middlesex had only 0.7mm of rainfall throughout the month.
It was the 4th sunniest June on record provisionally for the UK back to 1929 with only Junes 1957, 1940 and 1975 being sunnier. It was the fifth sunniest on record for Northern Ireland (with only Junes 1940, 1957, 1949 and 1939 being sunnier), fifth sunniest on record too for England (with only Junes 1957, 1940, 1975 and 1960 being sunnier), third sunniest on record for Wales (with only Junes 1957 and 1940 being sunnier) and fourth sunniest on record for Scotland (with only Junes 1940, 1949 and 1957 being sunnier).
On 28 June, Scotland provisionally recorded its highest ever temperature for any month with a maximum of 33.2°C at Motherwell. Its previous record was 32.9°C at Greycrook on 9 August 2003.
Keep in mind that these are all provisional and of subject to change.
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