From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/cpwpneyj05eo
We are told that these sort of temperatures are unheard of at this time of year and are only occurring because of climate change. Weather like this would have been impossible in the past, they infer. And it is an omen of what the future holds, as records successively get broken by a degree or more.
But is any of this true? Have we never had equally hot weather at this time of year?
In 1947, another intense heatwave hit England at the end of May and the first three days of June. Temperatures peaked on the 3rd June, hitting 94F at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, as well as at two London sites, Camden Square and Kensington.
This compares to the record of 95F at Kew yesterday.
Bear in mind that RAF Waddington was little more than a grass field in 1947, flying Avro Lincolns, the successor to the Lancaster on which it was based. The aerodrome is in a perfect rural environment and would have had none of the artificial heat sources that affect modern airfields, such as Heathrow, Coningsby and Waddington itself now.
In contrast, 95F at Kew probably includes at least three degrees of UHI. It is certainly true that the UHI effect in London is much greater now than in 1947, so the temperatures at Camden and Kensington then are probably comparable to Kew.
The 1947 heatwave came from an easterly direction and it was widespread. As well as Waddington and the two London sites, six other locations registered 93F:
Norwich
Mildenhall
Santon Downham
Cambridge
Greenwich
Regents Park
Significantly only four sites were hotter than 93F on Monday:
Kew
Heathrow
Northolt
Teddington
The last three are all junk sites.
By all estimation, the June 1947 heatwave was every bit as intense as this week’s, arguably more so. Yes, it occurred three days after the end of May, so technically is counted as in June. But is there any climatological or meteorological significance to those three days?
Of course not. Average temperatures on Tuesday 3rd June would be no different to Saturday 31st May.
It is always difficult comparing one weather event with another, particularly eight decades apart, because they are all unique,. But the evidence from June 1947 does more than undermine Met Office claims that this week’s heatwave is evidence of climate change. It raises the question why they are not giving the public all of the relevant facts by telling them we have had similar weather in the past.
Let’s be clear.
This week’s heatwave is an exceptionally rare event for this time of year, but it is not unprecedented, even during the few brief years our temperature records date back.
It has happened before and will undoubtedly happen again.
It has nothing to do with climate change.
If in doubt, lie…or, better still, conceal…
Repeat the lie often enough…
— Goebbels
I knew someone who said a sibling started believing his own lies.
Bold claim. Please stop.
I see what you did there.
“If in doubt, lie…or, better still, conceal…”
Yep…Release all the Epstein files.
As a ‘victim’ of this latest heat wave, can I just say I am getting worried.
I have experienced a general feeling of wellbeing and happiness as I sit on my patio enjoying the pleasantly warm air and comfortable guilt free enjoyment of an extra beer to facilitate rehydration.
My wife has even adopted ice cubes in a glass of white wine which is an evolutionary event, as her usual preference for plain cold water may have been broken.
These ‘changes’ in environmental stimulants may have long term economic consequences. I will now have to add a couple of bottles of white wine to my weekly essential provisions….
More white wine? See, climate changing is affecting everything!
1947 was also an excellent wine year, one of the best in Bordeaux!
I lived in the Netherlands at that time. I was in third grade elementary school.
I remember the winter being very cold. Lots of ice skating on the canals.
In the summer, schools closed, on days when it was over 80 F
At that time, there were just British people. All those unvetted, float-in folks from all over, came later.
People never even thought about CO2 and global warming.
That was a cruel hoax invented by west European elites in the 1990s, and celebrated by a bunch of annual COPs, love fest, with lots of yachts and private planes.
They thought, if we scare the hell out of people, about so many years left to doomsday, we will require the US, etc., to have wind, solar, batteries, etc., as well. They will be suffering of high prices too, which would level the playing field.
The only problem was the subsidized/coddled w/s/b approach turned out to be hugely expensive, which caused Europe to become uncompetitive in their own market and world markets. The float-ins acted like an anchor.
We’re all gonna die with a huge smile on our face…can’t let that happen with heat that freezes and cold that heats or? Cheers Rod, I also enjoyed a cold beer or two on my deck.
People use the word ‘unprecedented” and can’t even remember what they had for breakfast or lunch the day before…I always laugh
I had some work to do so I enjoyed a cold beer or two on my desk.
On the other hand – it was cool, breezy, and rainy here in the Mojave Desert. There was even snowfall at 6,000 feet in the Sierra. Late May we’re usually hitting low 100’s.
In the desert, rain is good news? Bring on climate change. :-o) (Catastrophists are of two minds, some say droughts others say more rain.)
We have our wet years and our dry years. I can say from experience multiple dry years adds up to a pretty bleak prospect. This year is (or was) wet, the dry grass is a problem for fires, but the food chain is loving it. Having a cold blast here at the end of May is not unheard of, like having a heat wave in the UK
You haven’t got the message yet, have you?
Normal British weather is just weather, nothing to see here, just move along.
Anything slightly out of the ordinary: hotter, colder, wetter, windier, that’s climate change. PANIC! PANIC! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!
Wasn’t the winter of 1947 also cold with not insignificant snow? Thus the temperature difference between January 1947 and May 1947 is larger than the temperature difference between January and May this year, although the
average temperature for this year over the same months will be higher than the 1947 data.
I have complained to the BBC over their description of the science behind a heat dome being caused by hot air being trapped under a high pressure system at altitude, rather than the downward flow of air causing an adiabatic temperature increase due increasing pressure (courtesy of https://weather.com/science/weather-explainers/news/2025-06-20-death-ridge-heat-dome-explainer).
And there was me thinking it was just the jet stream shifting north a bit and dragging warm air up from The Sahara Desert…
The clustering is interesting if Google AI is correct, 4 years between 1944 and 53 reached 30C in May, then not until 2005, and 2 more years since including 2026.
“But is there any climatological or meteorological significance to those three days?”
Yes:
You have to look at the inherant warmth of the airmass,
On the 3rd Jun 1947 at 850mb (5000′) in SE England the temp at that level was ~ 15C. At 00Z on 26th May 2026 it was ~ 17C
So ~ 2C warmer …. which is what the max temps on 26th were above the previous record.
it is the source region of the airmass that endows it with heat. That in these extreme cases is N Africa (The Sahara is under the subsidence zone of the Equatorial Jet and as such the air us very dry – precisely the place where GHGs have max effect in absence of high WV content).
“It raises the question why they are not giving the public all of the relevant facts by telling them we have had similar weather in the past.”
They are – see …..
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2026/record-breaking-heat-rewrites-may-temperature-records-across-the-uk
It’s the media who did not mention it NOT the MetO.
Your last sentence is a fair comment. Until we get a brave new MSM mogul the MSM will continue to promote only the climate alarmist position.
I read the Met Office article you cited, and another that it cited. No mention of similar weather in the past that I could see.
“Many of the previous records that were exceeded dated back several decades, with a notable concentration from the 1940s and 1950s. For instance, previous benchmarks at 24 sites including Ross-on-Wye, Goudhurst and Leeming were set during notable warm spells in 1944 and 1947.”
The BBC’s coverage was at times hysterical and ignorant ‘misinformation’. Several times they interviewed different in-house weather presenters (I do not know who employs them, BBC or MO), but they were outwardly astonished, agitated and excited, the lady one near tears it seemed, at the climate change red-flag event unfolding.
The core of their rhetoric was that it was normal for records to be beaten by tenths of a degree but 2 whole degrees, my o my, this was impossible without climate change.
But of course that is the very nature of weather and exactly what you would expect.
“Yes, exactly. Because the climate is a chaotic, non-linear system, temperature records are not always broken by tiny fractions of a degree. Instead, they can occasionally be shattered by large, statistically significant margins.”
“But of course that is the very nature of weather and exactly what you would expect.”
No it isn’t.
Show me to wrong (before the most recent decades).
Anthony, some day you should spend a year or so in Australia to get a feel of what unexpected weather is all about.
Where Australian poet Dorothea MacKellar while on a stay in England in 1908 penned her classic poem “My Country”, describing AU as “a land of drought and flooding rains”.
For example, Melbourne (capital city of the state of Victoria), is noted for offering residents there “3 seasons in one day”.
I can’t cite a rigorous proof but it seems to me quite logical that for a time-series of events that are normally distributed around a static climate, the longer one observes, the more likely they are to measure an outlier that is extreme — the more extreme it is, the more likely that some statistician doing a quality control review will delete it as being impossible.
This point is obvious to anyone with an IQ in 3 digits, but not apparently to climate alarmists like Anthony Bunter above. Toss a coin long enough, and one day you will get 100 heads in a row. Ditto with climate records.
The precision with which temperature and other weather parameters are measured is important. For example, until the mid 1990s, glass thermometers were standard for ground and airborne measurements but at that point, electronic thermometers were made the official standard. Nowadays, we have satellite measurements of temperature at different attitudes asd many other parameters. Electronic thermometers measure instant temperature, not average temperature over a several minute period as do glass thermometers. This yields higher highs and lower lows which I suspect is the same with other parameters such as humidity and wind speed as well. Comparing 1947 data with 2026 data must reflect the relative precision of the instruments used as well as ever increasing UHI effects and the well known reduction of global cloud cover and humidity in recent decades. Reports lacking analysis of such measurement differences are simply misleading or call them false if you wish.
The data I showed is taken from radiosonde ascents l, and so why would one from 1947 not be calibrated as accurately as todays ?
So, where is the Met Office manager coming out to correct the media …
… or will they just let the mis-information lie.
It is the lack of water vapour content, the atmospheric control, over the Sahara that allows the warming.. Nothing to do with CO2.
Oh, and thanks for showing us that this was an isolated WEATHER event.
What of course is not being reported is the cooler/colder than average temperatures across Eastern Europe, from the Baltics to the Black Sea and Turkey.
It’s not reported because our media are interested in our weather and not that of elsewhere unless it is notable.
Also, that’s the way atmospheric planetary waves work – for every warm ridge there is usually a cold trough before and behind.
That’s not how CO2 works.
It works as I stated on my first post.
Its reported because the local media reports weather and calls it “climate change” for hysterical purposes, not historical purposes.
Then take it up with them.
I’ve just stated with evidence why now was not the same as 1947 meteorologically speaking.
step repeat, the day that Australia burned . . 2009,
oops sorry . .1983,
oops sorry . . 1974,
oops sorry . . 1851
considering millions more people buildings high rises cars aircons planes etc id say recent temps were Below the 47 ones by a few degrees in truth , even Kew would now be getting extra from vehicle exhaust aircon heat on the area and less airflow due to higher buildings all round
Ah, the very real anthropogenic climate change.
Nothing to do with CO2, just more people and the support systems (aka infrastructure) effects that come with sustaining the population.
From the article: “This week’s heatwave is an exceptionally rare event for this time of year, but it is not unprecedented, even during the few brief years our temperature records date back.
It has happened before and will undoubtedly happen again.
It has nothing to do with climate change.”
Exactly.
The United States has certainly recorded temperatures in the past that were just as warm as today. There is no unprecedented weather today. Which means there is no evidence of measurable CO2 warming, since there is more CO2 in the air today, yet it is no warmer today than in the past when there was less CO2 in the air.
CO2 produces no visible effects on the Earth’s weather or climate.
visible = measureable
“It has happened before and will undoubtedly happen again.”
Half correct.
The correct part “undoubtedly happen again”
The incorrect part “it has happened before”
No, prior to the last 2 decades it hadn’t.
(as in a new record max 2C above the previous).
See my post above for the meteorology.
Well heck, would you credit it there is actually some science to differentiate and compare !
Not that that matters a jot here.
How about 1000 years ago? 2000? 5000? You know, all the other warm periods during this interglacial?
Err, humans weren’t burning fossil carbon for energy 1000’s of years ago !
And climate changes were driven by other things – mostly via Milankovitch cycles.
That really is a non sequitur. I believe the question was, “Is the current heat wave unprecedented?”, not, “Are the meteorological conditions unprecedented?” If the temperatures in the Recent past were equal to or higher than ‘today,’ then today’s temperatures are not that extreme, with or without the anthropogenic influence.
The shortest Milankovitch Cycle is Axial Precession, with a length of 19000 years. Therefore it is completely incapable of causing warming or cooling over a few centuries.
How do you account for the MWP and the LIA?
No such weather anomalies ever happened before these last 2 decades?
What a steaming pile of bullshit you wade in.
And wot a steaming pile non-comprehension you wade in.
Try reading what I said …
Don’t bother I will repeat as your cognitive dissonance will likely stop you ….
“No, prior to the last 2 decades it hadn’t.
(as in a new record max 2C above the previous)”
IE NOT “Weather anomalies” – JUST ones where max records beat existing ones by a full 2C and not merely by tenths.
Have you done a statistical significance test using the 2-sigma uncertainty to validate your claim that the recent temperatures aren’t equivalent to 1947?
As Ed Hawkins is quoted as saying in the BBC article: “Today’s heat events are… occurring across a much warmer background climate.”
He’s right. In the 30 years leading up to the 1947 heatwave (May 1917-May 1946), the average May temperature in England was 10.8C; in the 30-years leading up to the 2026 heatwave, the average May temperature in England was 11.8C, fully +1.0C warmer.
Average May temperatures over the past 30-years in England have been increasing at a rate of +0.4C per decade, so over the next 30-years (assuming no acceleration) we can expect to add at least one further degree C on top of that.
If the new normal background temperature is higher then you would expect the warm excursions from it to be higher too.
Data here.
Two points,
UHI does not increase temperatures at 5000′ altitude within an airmass sourced from the Sahara.
See my post above.
Temperature records do change with UHI.
Diversion to a different meteorological phenomenon does not disprove the points made.
Like the data shows – the airmass at 5000′ this last heatwave was ~ 2C above the one (1 week later on the year) within the airmass that gave the heateave that year (34.4C).
So on 3rd Jun 1947
we have 34.4C surface
Vs 15C at 5000′
Diff.=19C
On 26th May 2026
we have 35.1C surface
vs 17C at 5000′
Diff.= 18C
IE: The DALR (including the surface super) differential vs the surface max was less this Heatwave than was the one in 1947 which was recorded at RAF Waddington, which Homewood says….
“The aerodrome is in a perfect rural environment and would have had none of the artificial heat sources that affect modern airfields, such as Heathrow, Coningsby and Waddington itself now.”
On that basis your increasing UHI is contradicted.
As I often say one size dies not fit all.
One of those possible other sizes is the wind – was it turbulent enough to mix Londons HI raised air onto Kew Garden’s environment?
“Diversion to a different meteorological phenomenon does not disprove the points made.”
Typical WUWTian
Data as “diversion”.
Yeah, right don’t confuse me with the facts as I don’t want the Answer to be the one that is backed up by it LOL
And it looks like your unstated assumption is that that lapse rate in 1947 is the same as today, which probably isn’t the case.
By definition, UHI does not apply to temperatures at 5,000 feet. I was referring to TFN’s comment on land based trends.
Another point – about 2% or3% lower global cloud cover in recent decades along with lower humidity (contrary to the CO2 theory.)
Got a reference for that lower humidity?
No one has claimed there is no global warming.
The question is not a warmer background, but rather the quantification associated with “much warmer.”
If one does the math responsibly, the 0.4 C per decade is the slope of the curve, meaning end to end shows a slope of 1.2 C per 30 years. The climate temperature is 0.6 C above the interval starting point. Now, back it up 1 year. What fraction of a degree change occurred between the current 30 year climate interval and the 1 year prior 30 year interval.
Climate change is the trend of 30 year averaged over a longer interval.
It is not done this way, so continues the corruption of Science.
FYI, the change in average monthly maximum temperatures for the 30 years ending in 2025 is 0.1 C higher than the 30 year average of monthly maximum temperature for the year ending in 2024 per the data in the posted link.
Really? This site built its reputation on stating that global warming was an artifact of poorly sited surface stations.
Right, but how does that refute the argument that the 30-year period leading up to 1947 was a degree cooler than the 30-year period leading up to 2026?
Of course if you just use a running 30-year mean you won’t see a big difference. That’s the ‘boiling frog’ fallacy. You need to look at decadal averages at the very least.
In other words, you are claiming that the temperatures in 1947 were more anomalous.
No. They were literally cooler than they are now.
https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-real-story-of-2021-northwest.html heat wave June 2021
In his blog he explains how that heat wave was caused by a stackup of factors that normally partially offset each other.
Prof of meteorology Cliff Mass is the No. 1 go-to expert on weather in the Pacific NW America region.
When alarmists carry on with model constructs of life-threatening ‘crisis’ weather conditions, Cliff just posts actual recorded data points.
My internet handle of ‘Beta Blocker’ reflects the situation that my lifetime occupational radiation exposure comes mostly from beta-gamma sources as opposed to alpha sources.
Up until a few years ago, I was a regular participant in the comments section of the Cliff Mass weather blog under the name ‘Betah Blocher’.
That alternate handle was needed because the Blogger commenting system wouldn’t accept ‘Beta Blocker’ as a valid user name.
Anyway, at some point in the late summer of 2024, I was permanently banned from commenting on all Blogger system blogs, including the Cliff Mass blog.
Somebody inside the Google ecosystem of software systems, or possibly some censoring algorithm inside the Blogger commenting system’s software, obviously didn’t like what I was saying.
You are in good company. MS’s Copilot tells me that I get special treatment. While I’m not actually blocked at MSN, they have done numerous things such as assigning a ‘session’ time limit on commenting and frequently deleting the more fact-filled comments and never telling me why, despite numerous requests.
Take note of the discussion offered in the comments section of that 2024 Cliff Mass article. The alarmists attempt to make 2021’s extreme heat event in the Pacific Northwest into a warning sign that a day of climate reckoning is coming. It’s a dog which doesn’t hunt.
Yeah I did follow that discourse on Cliff’s blog.
He just calmly, clearly presented the historical records that demonstrated that current-day day heat waves are no more notable than past ones since records have been kept for the PNW.
And he is not a “climate denier” in any way, shape or form.
He concludes the PNW region has probably warmed up by about 2F over the past 100 years, some proportion of which could be fairly attributed to human activities –
broad-scale land clearing for agriculture;
urban developments – tar & cement;
mechanized plant & equipment with exhaust emissions.
CO2 control knob?
Duke it out with natural variability.
“Substantial uncertainties” apply to climate models.
Let’s not forget that Kew Gardens is one of the weather stations that are Grade 5 according to WMO standards, 80% of Met Office weather stations are Grade 4 or 5 or as I like to call them, unreliably shite
The percentage of UK temperature measuring sites that are in the WMO’s lowest classes 4 and 5 now stands at 80.6%.
The WMO say class 4 has uncertainties of up to 2 degrees C while class 5 “have additional uncertainties of up to 5 degrees C” and even the MO refers to them as “undesirable” but they are still used!
They are the one the activists at the Met Office love to use.
So much so, that a large proportion of sites added this century have been class 4 and 5.
Is the uncertainty for a 68% or 95% probability?
The Kew Gardens weather station is Grade 2!
I was going to remark on how well-dressed everyone was back in 1947, but the image is AI generated.
My father always wore a fedora when he went to work and in those days he was a young blue-collar worker.
Yes, I thought something was wrong. I don’t think there was ever a trollybus route along Oxford Street. And the mode of dress looks American, not British. I think the cut of the men’s trousers isn’t right for the UK. And, come to think of it, that bus stop doesn’t look right either, not for the period – too modern.
Other things that looked odd:
Actually, the”3d” on the Wall’s Ice Cream stand is short for 3 (pre-decimal) pennies (“thruppence”), which is probably what an ice cream cost in 1947. I’m old enough to remember pounds, shillings and pence, with twelve pence to the shilling and 20 shillings to a pound. It was replaced by the more rational decimal currency in 1971.
Yep, just found a 1947 London tram and trollybus route map – none along Oxford Street!
It is, otherwise, a worryingly convincing photo.
How does AI get the trademarked names (Dolcis, Woolworth’s, Walls Ice Cream etc) correct in the image? Does it use real photos as a basis?
AI terrifies me as it means there is no longer any means of authenticating photos or videos.
Depends on the AI. Grok in quality mode will do it all by itself.
The English climate in 1947 must have seemed really weird. From January 23 to March 9, 1947 most of England had severe snow cover. My late father (and his father) remembered it as the worst snow of the century. Both remember the local branch line had a locomotive travelling up and down every night to keep the line open. Yet less than three months after the snow disappeared,
My late mother experienced the heatwave of 1947 and described it as unbearably hot, worse than that of 1976.
Yes my dad always would tell me about the winter of 47 as the ‘worst winter’ until after the winter of 63.
I’m a British ex-pat based in France, and I noted that while a lot of the French media were highlighting all of the “hottest May on record” records currently being broken in the west of France, especially from Brittany to Bordeaux, they were silent about Paris.
The “Parc Montsouris” weather station in the south of Paris has one of the most complete “Tmax-Tmin” datasets, going back to (1/1/)1900.
Updating an old “summer peaks” spreadsheet I had with the “historical record” years for the UK of 1922 and 1944, along with data up to yesterday (the 29th of May) for 2026, gave me the top graph in the image file attached below.
A bit crowded, but I (eventually) noticed a lack of “deep purple” lines for July and August …
Stripping the graph down to just the years 1922, 1944, 1947 and 2026 (and reallocating colours) gave me the bottom graph attached below … and a major “WTF ?!?” moment …
.
.
A common reaction to climate sceptics is some variant of the question “Don’t you know the difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ ?”.
Like politics, all weather is local.
.
Question 1 : Will Paris (France) see a 2026 summer like 1947, with a spike in July or August setting a new “Hottest EVAH ! ! !” value that will last for 72 years (/ for the rest of this century) ?
Answer 1 : We do not know. We will have to wait (until mid-September and 2098 respectively) and see.
.
Q2 : Will Paris see a 2026 summer like 1944, where after the end-May “heatwave”, which saw the highest Tmax values for the entire summer, temperatures only managed to reach 32°C again for two days in August ?
A2 : We do not know. We will have to wait and see.
NB : In August 1944 Parisians were “distracted” with an uprising and being liberated by General Leclerc’s “deuxieme DB”. Taking temperature readings may have been a secondary consideration at the time.
.
Q3 : Will Paris see a 2026 summer like 1922, where after the end-May “heatwave”, which saw the highest Tmax values for the entire summer, temperatures only managed to get above 30°C again on the 1st of June ?
A3 : We do not know. We will have to wait and see.
….and in conclusion …..A Banton and Final Nail completely wiped the floor with skeptics on this one, with well-evidenced and data relevant responses. Most contributions from skeptics have been knee- jerk, poorly judged and outclassed.
Must do better if you’re to have any credence at all skeptics. Maybe enlist responses from those who have at least equal scientific credentials.
Only in your mind, nowhere else.
You initially came here some claiming to be neutral, but you never were.
He is. If you’re interested, I can provide specific examples of him disagreeing with or contradicting my comments.