From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
Much has been made of the fact that last month was hotter then June 1976, at least according to Met Office figures. Attempts to compare the two months are misleading, and frankly dishonest when used to pretend the actual weather was hotter this year. In short, we are comparing apples and pears.
It is often forgotten that the heatwave in 1976 never really got going until the last week of the month, despite a couple of hot days two weeks before.
When it did get going, it produced scorching heat well into the middle of July, and at levels above anything seen this year.
In contrast, we only had four really hot days last month, none of which reached 30C. In 1976, every single day but one between 28th June and 7th July topped 30C.
To understand the extraordinary heatwave in 1976, you need to look at the whole picture across both June and July. So far this summer, there has been nothing that comes anywhere near that earlier heatwave.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html
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Media claims of 2025 being hotter are based on cherry-picked figures for SE England, probably compared with CET for 1976. So dishonest…
I lived through the Summer of 1976. My parents actually took their bed into the garden to try to sleep.
This Summer has been nothing like as hot.
I stayed with a friend near Lyme Regis in July of that year. The following day the thermometer that was hanging under a tree in his garden read 110F. I don’t recall a mood of doom or foreboding or thinking something was wrong. All I recall was thinking this is hot and then proceeded to enjoy the summer, which was a mixture of working in a hot café, assisting with trying to put out brush fires, on an almost daily basis and swimming in a beautifully warm and calm sea.
The summer of 1976 had 11 heatwaves using the same crude media version of the description. The media are already claiming 3 UK heatwaves this year, where many places away from the SE have not even had one. The 11 heatwaves were at least England wide not just in the SE.
A heatwave ran from June until August
https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/14686840.Pubs_ran_out_of_beer__roads_melted__what_you_remembered_about_the_summer_of_1976/
As I was there and remember it well I can honestly say that this year doesn’t come close.
But they desperately want it to be “worse”, as they say. In this paradigm, days have literally become weeks, and as I pointed out the other day, they now believe 26C is a real danger to health – god help the tropics etc.
“There’s a lot to be anxious about as a new parent, let alone in a heatwave when the thermometer in your one-year-old daughter’s room is reading 26C. That’s six degrees higher than the upper limit of the recommended temperature for a child’s room. After scrolling my phone for advice on how to cool her room, I couldn’t help waking up every few hours to check she was OK on the baby monitor.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/06/deadly-heatwaves-adapt-cities-towns
On Clapham Common there is a large pub called the Windmill (Young &Co) which had extensive gardens and allowed you to take beer etc out onto the common – big numbers you see. Extra employment for potmen – collecting the glasses left around. It was great until the pubs ran out of beer and then the only thing left was that dreadful Saxon lager they used to brew. Ugh; flat and awful. A great summer, a real one-off, glad I was there.
Next week: How gentle breeze Brian evolved from the hurricane of 1987…
The advantage and disadvantages of averaging. The CET maximum average for summer shows 1976 as the warmest summer on record, by 0.66°C over 2nd place.
Yet 1976 does not hold the record in any individual month. It’s very close in June, just 0.1°C below 2023, but for July and August it’s far from the record. July it’s in 5th place, more than a degre below 2006 and 2018. And August it’s only 7th warmest, not even as warm as the previous August.
It’s the fact it was warm over the entire season rather than just one monththat makes it the long hot summer.
One difference between 2025 and 1976, is that this summer is following a record breaking Spring, whereas the spring of 1976 was pretty average.
Here’s another difference: people have gone nuts – see above.
“Pope Leo Celebrates First ‘Green Mass’ as He Pursues ‘Climate Justice for All’”
To claim it was record breaking, how far back did you go as a starting point? 1970?
The 1930’s were way hotter.
“To claim it was record breaking, how far back did you go as a starting point? 1970?”
For maximum temperatures the CET goes back to 1878. It was also the hottest summer for mean temperatures going back to 1661 (with the usual caveats about the accuracy of CET that far back).
The UK was definitely not “way” warmer in the 1930s.
You are of course ignoring 1906, 1911, and 1955. I wonder why?
I’m not ignoring anything. If I say 1976 was a record that means it was warmer than any of those years you mentioned.
For the record, the CET summer max has 1911 as the 8th warmest, 1955 as the 17th, and 1906 is 44th warmest.
Wasn’t it 1910 or 1911 that had a heat wave in Europe in which over 40,000 people died?
The Guardian, of course, doesn’t remember such things.
Do you also do horse racing form guides?
Even if it was close, that was back when the “threat” was a returning ice age.
Thank you. One or the other ‘threats’ occur whenever the mood hits.
This week has been sunny but a north westerly wind has been quite sharp and sufficient to make sitting-out uncomfortable. That wind picked up the Atlantic Ocean temperature. Towards the week end, the wind is swinging to the south and no doubt we will be in receipt of Saharan sand (which, I believe, when deposited on Brazil is an aid to farming, here it just turns vehicles uniformly beige). How odd that folks are blaming our industry’s outfall for warming when our temperature is metered by the weather in distant parts and wafted here on the breeze!?The idea that we can control the temperature by fiat seems totally bizarre. See also King Canute.
I live in Southampton UK and in 1976 was much hotter we hit 35c out of the blue . The recent hot weather we got up to 31C so 4 C less . Also back then more care was taken with siting of temperature stations and there were no “ estimated” data . None of the cars in the UK other than a Rolls Royce had air conditioning so being out on the road was hot ! Me I was 18 at the time and loved riding around on a Yamaha RD250 in a T shirt and jeans . 13 years earlier we had had an unexpected severe winter in 1963 , with snow lying from 26th December through till mid March on the south coast of England which was totally unheard of . I guess nowadays they would have been blaming it on climate change . From my perspective going back all these years I don’t think the summers have got any warmer or hotter , in fact some years cooler , but I think the winters have got just a little bit warmer , but still most years we have a little bit of snow here in the South Coast which hangs around for a couple of days.
I got my first 2-wheeled bike on Christmas Day, 1963. I rode it once that day and then couldn’t ride it for nearly three months. What a glorious summer 1976 was – OK, as a 20-year-old, running out of beer was a concern, and it was somewhat of a challenge working out in the fields on a farm as my summer job, but it was just weather.
I was in my mid 20s in 1976 and was working in Kent having moved south from Scotland. Relying on memory in Scotland a year earlier in 1975. I think it started in July and continued to October. There were record breaking temperatures and low rainfall and a Drought by the end. I then had another great summer weather-wise in 1976, in Scotland I don’t think 76 was as good as 75.
So in my memory 1976 was the continuation of what was a two year good summer spell.
June 1975 a cricket match in Buxton, Derbyshire was abandoned due to snow.
Yes it was, I was in Buxton that day and planning to go to the match in the afternoon! The next week a drought started and lasted into the next year which is one of the reasons 1976 was so hot, it was the second of two.
The UK is doing a reasonable job of making their North Atlantic islands into desert islands. Chop down the trees; reduce cropping area by replacing them with hard, dark surface as well as slowing or stopping ocean air advection with wind energy robbers and you are making good progress toward desertification.
Deserts, devoid of atmospheric water heat up under the scorching sun. And the zenith solar intensity is up by 6W/m^2 in early April at 50N compared with what it was in 1912.
In fact the average daily increase for solar intensity across the NH from March Equinox to June Solstice is 2.16W/m^2 in 2025 compared with 1912. And 2025 is up 1.9W/m^2 compared with 1976. So there must be a reason other than the sun for the high temperature in 1976. History tells us it was a very dry period in the UK even without the wind robbers. Those conditions are now being achieved by slowing the onshore wind.
Given the UK charge to NetZero, there is a good chance of making the British Isles unlivable for environmental reasons rather than economic collapse.
“By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” —Dr. Paul Ehrlich, speech at the British Institute for Biology, Sep. 1971
“Given the UK charge to NetZero, there is a good chance of making the British Isles unlivable for environmental reasons rather than economic collapse.”
I’d advise against getting into the prophecy game. The former pales into insignificance with the latter. We still have EU laws on the books.
Retained EU law and assimilated law dashboard
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/retained-eu-law-dashboard
“inhabited by some 70 million hungry people “
U.K. population in 2025 is 69,551,332, (in 2000 it was approximately 58.9 million.)
In 2025, approximately 28% of adults in England are obese and a further 36% are overweight.
Not 70 million hungry people
we’ve got over 44 million porkers chomping on Muck-Donalds, costing the NHS a fortune.
How many are illegal? Quite a few. Open borders doesn’t help. The Tipping Point is coming.
“costing the NHS a fortune”
One of the strongest arguments against socialized medicine is that it leads people to believe they have a right to control other people’s choices. After all, those choices are costing them money.
People’s choices are being influenced all the time by the advertisements from companies whose purpose is to maximize profits.
That represents a type of control.
In Anglesey ( North Wales), it’s 11:15am & we are suffering unprecedented blistering heat (I just checked the thermometer it’s now up to 19°C ).
Forecast is for 21°C by 14:00 so will be able to take off my fleece.!!!
I remember that in the Summer of 1976 roads were melting, the only thing soft this year [apart from the obvious (;-)) ], are the dumbos who believe all this media tripe.
19°C
Phew!
That’s one degree lower than the upper limit of the recommended temperature for a child’s room.
It’s 23C and overcast here in London and… you can factor in the UHI (3-5C) so roughly 19 or 20C
24°C at midday here in E Anglia. Perfect temperature for me
In Ireland they speak of a heatwave when the temperature tops 28°C.
In other parts of the world it starts feeling hot when the temperatures top 35°C.
Living in a place where the temperatures regularly exceed 40°C in mid summer with a low humidity is really hot but quite survivable and life continues. How on earth did people live and not die like flies in the days before air conditioning?
We weren’t constantly bombarded with warnings about how hot it was, so we didn’t really dwell on it much, just took it in our stride.
That’s right.
Speaking from direct personal experience (growing up in the Arizona desert, ca. A.D.1967 ± 7):
— the Summer temperatures (in the shade) regular topped 115 F (that’s ~ 46 C)
— we had no AC, rather only ‘swamp coolers’ (evaporative cooling) for our homes
— there we certain things one never did, like touch dark surfaces or anything metallic in the sun, or open the shutters / blinds to the direct daylight sun.
— other things we did that are unfamiliar elsewhere: outdoors work from pre-dawn, cleaning that up by noon; play our sports & games, picnics etc, after sunset, under the lights; basically live like the other desert mammals (all are nocturnal in summertime).
Of course, they say, “it’s a dry heat”!
[Cue the postcards with skeletons & cactus … the very abundant existence of which succulents evidences that there’s plenty of moisture in the soil.]
Which is true. Except for when the Sonoran Monsoon comes, then it’s humid & hot. For a few hours only, i.e. until the daily PM thunderstorms come with their cooling wind & refreshing rains.
All in all, as kids we never knew that we were living in a too-hot-to-bear-it clime; think rather of a gigantic garden oasis.
The older folks complained, of course, but most of them would head in summer to the hills — mountains actually, it’s a lot cooler at 9,000′ / 2,800-meters above the level of the sea — or to spend the season back in their northern lands-of-origin.
The image selected for this article could be used as a guide for what NOT to do during a summertime heatwave: He* is outdoors, exposed to the direct sun, well above the horizon, wearing a dark suit, no hat, etc. &c.
*P.S. Isn’t that John Travolta, with the central-california backdrop of Phenomenon, but dressed for Pulp Fiction?
Never trust google / AI: [ Malley suffered a brain seizure, explained by a tumor that would ultimately kill him, but not before he entered the kind of hyperattentive ‘phenomenon’ state that is well documented in earlier centuries. ]
The south east of England is defined as having a heatwave if the temperature exceeds 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) for three consecutive days or more. The north west is defined as having a heatwave if the temperature exceeds 25 degrees Celsius (77 degrees Fahrenheit) for three days or more. I’m not sure what an earlier definition of heatwave was.
82F? Heatwave? That’s pretty ordinary summer for south Idaho.
Southern Spain 2017…”summer began May 1st and ended October 31st…not a single day or hour temperatures dropped below 30°C..me “living” in a wooden shed without insulation nor AC…and “Alzheimer” ridden ignorants BS-telling me “unprecedented HEÁTWAVES” today…laughable…yes tell.me what you had for breakfast this morning eco-climate-tard…get lost.
Sumner is either hot, mild or rainy…FF-OFF all you paid idiots.
Yes personally I’ve lived through a “brutal summer”… one and the first of my 54 years..that ‘s neither is a crisis, a trend nor an imminent desaster…all you brainless parrot like reppeating broken MP3’s.
It’s summer for heaven’s sake…the sun rules. Disagree? feed of grain you grow at the north pole…and let me live in peace.
The WEF and UN plus their supporters, Black Rock etc, are ramping up the climate hysteria to insane levels because they are in panic mode. The more they try, the more ridiculous they appear. Accurate statistics on global temperatures and severe weather events are freely available. These show that the climate is behaving within normal variable parameters over a long period.
Just why the unelected world governing bodies think that they can openly lie is a puzzle.
Of course you can’t compare the summer before it’s over, and the heat so far has mostly affected S/E England.
But yes June 2025 CET average mean temperature was higher than 1976 (well statistically close enough to be considered the same I would say, especially as I think the MO nobbled 1976 down a tiny fraction a while back).
This is and always will be the standard way comparisons are made.
It’s not down to dodgy thermometers or invalid comparisons or anything else.
You can’t use the average daily maximum to declare the warmest, that’s not standard.
In that case why not use the average daily minimum, in which case 2025 wins hands down.
But the main point is that 1976 was exceptional in its time, now every other summer is producing warmth in the same ball park.
Additionally, the CET for 2025 is on course to be by far the warmest year in the entire series, both by average mean, and your preferred average maximum.
I know some people are having trouble accepting it, but for some years now, we have been enjoying an exceptionally warm period of weather in the UK. You’re not going to change fact.
“This is and always will be the standard way comparisons are made.”
Unfortunately true.
Even more unfortunate is that it does not accurately present anything.
“But the main point is that 1976 was exceptional in its time, now every other summer is producing warmth in the same ball park.” Total bollocks. How many PRTs in 1976 running on 60 second averaging? How many deliberately crap sited weather stations back then?
You Brits are amusing. You think 30 C is hot. In proper units that is 86 F. Around here (Ohio). That is a beautiful summer day. You can take the kids to the municipal swimming pool. Sit on the front porch and sip a cold gin and tonic. 35 C is a hot not terrible summer day. Just get your run in before the sun gets too high in the morning.
Really. Stop whining you never have really beastly weather, no matter how insane your energy policies are.
I suggest you vacation in Mexico – specifically the Quintana Roo (Chichen Itza) – and see what 35°C and 100% humidity feels like.
I’ve done that, similar in Natal In S Africa and I’ve done 50°C in the Mojave desert. Mojave was more comfortable.
I don’t have to go to Mexico to have weather like that. We get a couple of days like that every summer. We have central air conditioning.
Philly has been in the low 90 with 85% humidity for the last couple of days. Last week it was 99, 100, 99 in a three day span. Not any worse than any other year in the last 55 years that I remember. Spring was cool and long, I expect some extra heat this summer to offset the spring.
“You Brits are amusing”
Funny you should say that !!
Ohio is 7 degrees south of the U.K., the same latitude as Spain. Also Ohio is not an island adjacent to the Atlantic. Therefore your comparison is a little disingenuous. Winnipeg, Canada is on the same latitude as the very south of the U.K.
Ive looked at the weather forecast for Winnipeg and the temperatures are not dissimilar to the U.K..
Edmonton, Canada forecast is not dissimilar to Manchester, U.K. which are on similar latitudes.
I would guess you have AC ?
We don’t and our BRICK houses act like storage radiators …. Stay hot overnight.
Upshot – no relief, and deaths of the elderly/infirm..
You Yanks are amusing too.
This year more reminds me of, I think, 1957.
30C / 86F is not a heatwave where I live. We are supposed to hit 93F today, and stay in the lower 90’s for the rest of the week, and probably the rest of the summer, and that’s normal for around here.
Of course, everything is relative. If one is not used to 86F, then that temperature seems hot.
here in Philly we typically get many days in the high 90s each year and many in the low 20 in the winter.
32C daily max is not a heat wave, it is just a nice summer day. I have just been in Italy, where hoards of tourists enjoyed themselves in 35-38C, many of them Brits.
It is when you don’t have AC to cool down and recover overnight in brick houses built to keep heat in.
Those self-same Brits can do that there, that’s why they are enjoying it – can’t easily in the UK.
Then, there was the Big Freeze of 1962/63 in Europe and the UK. One of the coldest for centuries. Certainly not due to CO2.
Having graduated HS in 1976, I must admit I didn’t notice a heatwave in New Jersey. The weather seems the same to me now too.
Philly about same age and I agree.
Except for seasonal changes, I find that all temporary temperature increases are due to decreased levels of SO2 aerosol pollution in the atmosphere.
I also find that when the SO2 aerosols from a VEI4 or larger volcanic eruption settle out, some 15-25 months after the date of the eruption, they flush out enough of the industrial SO2 aerosols in the troposphere to cause temperatures to rise, frequently high enough to result in an El Nino.
The temporary 1976 temperature increase was due to the VEI4(+) eruption of Tolbachik on July 5, 1975, and its subsequent El Nino, which began in Aug 1976, with the graph showing the gradual rise to that temperature (GISS temperature maps show that it began in April).
It is COMPLETELY dishonest to claim that a temporary event is representative of our climate, and then compare it to another one, which may have a different cause.(although still due to decreased SO2 aerosol levels)
Well heck it’s Homewood again:
What is notable about hot spells in the UK now as apposed to the one in 1976, is the extent of the heat of the air advected north to us from the Sahara.
These charts illustrate the airmass temperature resident at 850 mb (~5000ft).
There is a simple rule of thumb to figure the sea-level temperature (over land away from a sea influence), and that is to add 3C for every 1000ft – so that’s 15C + the 850mb temp.
It is empirical and based on the DALR, as in a dry atmosphere is a stable lapse rate Alford the surface.
Another factor in that is the surface wind, if light then a surface super-adiabatic of 2C is likely and 4C at the extreme.
Also a prolonged dry spell will dry out soils to accentuate the super, as happened in ‘76 – hence an extreme surface super-adiabat under light winds.
So 16C at 850 + 15 (+2 to 4) = 33 to 35C
The hottest days so far this year were on 21st June and the 1st July, at 33 to 35C.
Note from the maps that the 850mb temp was indeed 16C over S England both in ‘76 and this year.
But the 18C isotherm had encroached into the far SE this year and France was encompassed by the 20C isotherm with 24C over Spain.
In ‘76 the 20C isotherm remained over N Africa (where it belongs) and Spain’s airmass was similar to England’s.
Thus this summer (as has been the case for some years, notably 19th July 2022, when a record 850mb temp of 25.2C was recorded by radiosonde over southern England the night before.
(25 +15 = 4040C). No real super-adiabat as the southerly wind was moderate to fresh in strength.
Given the same synoptic pressure pattern now that occurred in summer ‘76 there is no doubt from a meteorological standpoint that surface temperatures would be a minimum of 3C higher than that.
Be careful, you’ll run out of orange and red crayons before August.
You’ll find plenty on the Meteociel website were you to look.
No constructive or even vaguely sensible comment I see.
Par for the course, I know.
Displaying temperatures of 24ºC as angry red and you want to be taken seriously?
You need to remember where the U.K. weather stations are located. See https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-synoptic-and-climate-stations note how many are located at airports, RAF stations and in urban areas (Lat/long coordinates provided)
This is a much more informative list that shows how awful most of them actually are
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/02/19/updated-met-office-cimo-classification-list-not-getting-better/comment-page-1/
I read something about that on the daily sceptic website, where around significant number have errors of up to 3 degrees or 5 degrees. I hadn’t realised that the original article you linked to had included the classification for each site.
And if the isotherms in 1976 had been similar to those now it would have been even hotter. But they weren’t.
Exactly, they should be looking at maximum and not mean temperatures in England which is the warmest part of the UK. June 1976 was hotter than June 2025 despite a colder AMO.
N Ireland, Wales and Scotland tell a very different story.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-temperature-rainfall-and-sunshine-time-series
The nature of greenhouse gas-driven climate change is such that it is in the minimum and mean temperatures, driven by warmer nights, that we should expect to see the strongest increases in over time; not necessarily maximum temperatures. That is exactly what we see in the UK, according to your link.
Since 1980, max has warmed more than min for June in England.
“The nature of greenhouse gas-driven climate change”
Now, how would you know that, since there is no evidence for greenhouse gas-driven climate change?
You are presenting speculation and assumptions about CO2 as established facts.
There is no evidence that CO2 is anything other than a benign gas, essential for life on Earth. No evidence. You assume too much, and you can’t prove a thing.
This phrase was enough for me to realize Brits are pansies or the MET office is lying or both “..we only had four really hot days last month, none of which reached 30C…”…seriously, how can you call something a ‘heat wave’ when temperatures never reach or exceed 30C (88F)…that’s a nice warm day not a ‘heat wave’.
A 30C day in Saskatchewan is celebrated not demonized…
The UK Met Office has now become dominated by climate activists more than happy to distort temperature recording. The changes since the 1976 heatwave (which started on my 20th birthday – I remember it very well) are astonishing. Modern very poor/degraded sites, Aitken Effect over recording temperatures, PRTs picking up transient heat spikes and a crude averaging system skewed to reliance on momentary extremes. The Met Office is unfit for purpose – a classic example is that it used to employ complete planks like Anthony Banton that no private concern would ever consider. I have so far reviewed 288 weather stations. This one outlines some of the issues and the “Surface Stations Project” header will take you to the full index.
. Bon Accord, Bussex Farm, Westonzoyland, Nr Bridgwater, Somerset, TA7 0EU. Bon Accord, Bussex https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/06/28/lentran-dcnn0579-more-on-the-issues-of-distorted-sites-and-instrumentation-shortcomings/, Westonzoyland, Nr Bridgwater, Somerset, TA7 0EU
Sorry the wrong link try this
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/06/28/lentran-dcnn0579-more-on-the-issues-of-distorted-sites-and-instrumentation-shortcomings/
The heatwave in 1976 went on well into August. It was only when the government appointed a rain czar did the heavens open.
I remember it, despite how young I was. “Hey hey, you hear what the weatherman say? It ain’t no joke, reach for a Coke, the sun’s gonna shine all day!”
A good evocation of that year is Woodward and Penn’s book ‘The wrong kind of snow’ (1988). This is an entertaining volume that tracks the historic record of every day of the year in Britain illustrated with vignettes relating to the effects of weather on human activity.