—In over 250 years of rainfall records in Oxford, no calendar month has (yet) remained completely dry, although April 1817 and April 2011 recorded just 0.5mm (0.02”) of rainfall each. The longest period without rainfall occurred during the Great Drought of 1976, when 40 consecutive days starting on 19 July remained rainless.

September 1774 retains the title of the wettest month yet recorded in Oxford, with 224mm (8.82”), four times the monthly average. Oxford’s wettest day was July 10, 1968, when 87.9mm (3.46”) fell in 24 hours.

What do Oxford’s long weather records tell us of climate change?

Here are a few snippets from over 200 years of records:

—There is unambiguous local evidence of climate change. Oxford has warmed by 1.72°C (3.10°F) over the last 200 years. The mean temperature over the last 30 years (1989-2018) stands at 11.06°C (51.84°F) and for the first 30 years of the record (1814-1843) the equivalent figure was 9.34°C (48.81°F). Only around 0.2°C of this increase can be attributed to Oxford’s urban growth, according to the Burts.

—All of the top-five warmest years in Oxford have occurred since and including 2006, the warmest being 2014 with a mean temperature of 11.8°C (53.2°F). In contrast, the most recent ‘top-five coldest year was 140 years ago, in 1879, when the mean temperature was just 7.7°C (45.9°F). Summer 2018, with a mean temperature of 18.8°C (65.8°F), topped the list as the hottest summer yet recorded in Oxford, just nipping the previous record holders (1826 and 1976) by a tenth of a degree Celsius.

—Oxford is getting sunnier as well as warmer. Fractions of possible sunshine have increased since the 1960s, particularly in winter, the increase being largely attributed to anti-pollution legislation and the resulting decrease in winter fogs. Fogs are now only one-third as frequent as they were in the 1920s and 1930s.

—Although Oxford has become sunnier, there is a clear upward trend in precipitation over the past two centuries. The overall linear trend is highly significant. As we have already seen, the long-term linear trend in mean air temperature with time (since 1815) is also very strong and, taken together, these two results might suggest a possible long-term temperature-precipitation linkage.

Conclusion

Oxford Weather and Climate Since 1767 is a must-have book for anyone with a strong interest in weather history or climatology. It was released on May 30 in the U.K. and was released in the U.S. on June 30, although Amazon posts^[3] a July 30 on-sale date.

Christopher C. Burt

Weather Historian

Image Note: All images in this blog are from the book and are credited to Stephen and Tim Burt unless otherwise noted.

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