Scorcher

I don't think it will be a cold month but I have a feeling it will be more settled overall than January and therefore clear skies could lead to lower night time minima. I'm thinking there may a cold spell mid month and then becoming milder again towards the end of the month. I'll go for 5.4C.

The first few days do look mild, and although it's important not to be misled by the first few days, I think it could well be mild right to the middle of the month. I have a feeling by mid-month the CET could be running well above average. Therefore I'm going to go for 6.7C.

True but those two Octobers didn't come straight after the warmest September on record, which makes this figure of 13C all the more astonishing.

Interesting that those figures also suggest that this September was .2C warmer than 1729.

Liverpool Airport reached 19C, Manchester reached 18C and several places in the Yorkshire area did as have been mentioned as well as the warmth in the south.

According to climate-uk.com, the CET is still at 13C. I'm surprised by this as I thought that the warm day yesterday with many places in the CET zone reaching 17 or 18C would be enough to produce a slight rise. The past couple of days as a whole have been well above average by day and night within the CET zone.

I thought so, I suppose it's happened many times in the past.

Doesn't the night time temperature still count as the maximum if it's the warmest of that particular date?

We should see another small rise in the CET today. It's currently at 13.5C but last night was another very mild one and temperatures today have reached 17-18C quite widely across England.

I personally would put the high temperatures we saw in July in the exceptionally hot category. Is 35C at Liverpool Airport not exceptionally hot? In Manchester we also reached 30C on 4 or 5 occasions in the month which is very unusual.

The question is, how come October 1921 isn't the warmest on record after a week like that? That's an incredible sequence for so late in the year. It must have taken something quite cool in the second half to make the month as a whole cooler than 2001 and 2005 were.

I don't think sunshine, sustained warmth or long, warm summers have much to do with the survival of exotic plants in the UK. It's pretty much completely down to frost. Look at New Zealand for example- all kinds of palms are able to grow there and the summers are mostly cooler than the UK. I'd say that sunshine is probably lower too. The lack of frost is what enables them to survive, regardless of the levels of sunshine or summer heat.

September in the US was rather cool, but the heat has returned through the Rockies, Midwest and Great Plains region for the beginning of October. Some quite exceptional heat for this time of year with Dallas at 36C and Kansas City and St Louis at 34C.

I agree, the blocked regime appears to have disappeared at least for the time being. It seems that things changed around the beginning of August when the Atlantic seemed to kick into action. Still, if the cold rampers want a blocked regime, they will try to make us believe that it's there. If the current pattern persists, we will be looking at a winter that is considerably milder than last year. Obviously there is still plenty of time for this to change, but there is nothing particularly encouraging in the outlook for the cold lovers at the moment.

I think the 1729 CET is at the very least questionable. I think it's quite odd that we discount the data from certain stations these days but still allow data from the the 18th century to be on a par with that of today. Did they have the technology back then and as much knowledge as the meteorologists of today about how to produce accurate readings? It just seems odd that this record has lasted so long in a period of growing warmth.

That's not true, virtually every day has been above average! In fact today was the coolest day of the month in Manchester at 16C which is average for the end of September! Even the cooler days have been above average. There have been temperatures in the 20s throughout the month- in most areas 21C is 3C above average in September. Then we saw 27C quite widely on the 21st- which is quite exceptional for so late in the month. I don't even know why you're trying to play down this month- it has been warmer than August and considerably warmer than any September in the past century. It's incredible that the cold lovers try to play down even the warmest months on record! You can't expect constant heat all the way through September- 22C in September is the equivalent of something like 25C in July or August. It's both the consistently high maxima and minima which have produced the record CET.

On what grounds? It's amazing people can say this after what could be the warmest September on record. Maybe you should have said 'hope' instead of 'think', as there is no explanation to back up your view. I'm going to go for 12.7C, as there is still plenty of warmth around in Europe, particularly Central and Eastern Europe which I think will come into play at some stage. I think a cool start will be offset by a very warm period in the middle of October.

I'd be delighted to see a record breaking mild winter this year. As I won't be in the UK I don't mind too much if it's a colder winter but I'd still like to see Barletts throughout the winter. One of the reasons I chose to study in Florida for a year was because of the lack of a winter. Does anyone know if there have been many winters that have been well above average temperature-wise with below average rainfall? For me there's no better sight in January than seeing 14C being forecast.

October 2005 started off much cooler than this October is looking like it will and look what happened then.

I think I'm right in saying some places got close in mid September 2005, which is quite odd. I think some places recorded minimums only just above freezing on September 17th last year. Could you confirm this Mr Data?

Perhaps there is still an outside chance of the record going. The CET has now gone back over 17C according to Philip Eden's site. Not really surprising when you consider most places didn't get below 15 or 16C last night and then rose into the low 20s during the day. I think we can safely say now that a 16C+ CET is a certainty. It's just a question of how far above that figure it will be.

For me this month has been remarkable for its lack of cool temperatures so far. Nearly everything has been average, with very few days or nights below average. Using Manchester as an example, the coolest maximum in September so far was 17C on the 14th, which I think is the average for that time in September.

I agree, it will take quite some drop for the CET to fall below 16C now. Daytime temperatures still look above average for the coming week, with most nights being warmer than average too. Time is running out for the CET to drop now.

Does anyone know when the warmest June-September period was? Surely with the September CET looking like it will be above 16C this has a chance of being the warmest such period? It would be a quite incredible few months if the CET finished above the all time record of 16.6C.

I personally think the CET will stay steady until at least the weekend- there have been some very high minima overnight and if temperatures can reach the low to mid 20s widely again it's possible that it could even rise today. If it's still above 16.5 by the 20th- which is possible, it's going to take a lot to drop it to 15C.