The UKCIP (UK Climate Impacts Programme) data sets have been created
for 26 weather parameters, based on the archive of UK weather observations
held at the Met Office. For most parameters approximately 500 stations
are used to create each grid; for rainfall approximately 3,500 stations
are used. The regression and interpolation process used to obtain
the 5 km grids alleviates the impacts of station openings and
closures on homogeneity but the impacts of a changing station network
cannot be removed entirely, especially in topographically variable
areas.
Full details of the
analysis method (PDF, 766 kb).
The files may be downloaded free of charge for research purposes,
although all users must pre-register. Before registering, please make
sure that you have read and understood the terms
and conditions for using these data sets. Once your registration
has been approved, access will be granted via the link below.
Register now
Note: These data sets are not definitive and the Met Office reserves
the right to issue periodic updates that reflect improvements in our
ability to produce these grids. Not all data sets may be available
at any given time.
Monthly data sets
Monthly data are in 10-year blocks and are available for the
period 1961 to 2000. The files are approximately 4 Mb in
size and will normally take about 15 minutes to download using
a 56 Kbps modem. The list of available parameters is given
below:
- Mean monthly daily maximum temperature (°C)
- Mean monthly daily minimum temperature (°C)
- Monthly mean temperature (average of the mean monthly maximum
and minimum) (°C)
- Number of days of air frost
- Number of days of ground frost
- Mean monthly sea-level pressure (hPa)
- Mean monthly vapour pressure (hPa)
- Mean monthly wind speed (knots)
- Mean monthly cloud cover (%)
- Monthly mean hours of bright sunshine per day
- Number of days per month having a rainfall >= 1 mm
(Rain Days)
- Number of days per month having a rainfall >= 10 mm
(Wet Days)
- Number of days per month with snow falling (Snow Fall)
- Number of days per month with snow cover > 50%
- Total monthly precipitation (mm)
Yearly data sets
Yearly data are stored as single 40 year blocks. The files are
approximately 1.5 Mb in size and it will normally take about
7 minutes to download each one via a 56 Kbps modem. The list
of available parameters is given below:
- Annual extreme temperature range (Highest daily maximum -
lowest daily minimum) (°C)
- Heating degree days - S (15.5
- daily mean temperature), ignoring negatives, over the winter
months.
- Growing degree days - S (daily
mean temperature - 4), ignoring negatives, over the summer months.
- Growing season length - Bounded by daily mean temperature
being > 5 °C for > five consecutive days
and < 5 °C for > five consecutive days.
- Summer heat wave duration - Total days with maximum temperature
> 3 °C above the 1961-90 normal for > five
consecutive days (May to October)
- Winter heat wave duration - Total days with maximum temperature
> 3 °C above the 1961-90 normal for > five
consecutive days (November to April)
- Summer cold wave duration - Total days with minimum temperature
> 3 °C below the 1961-90 normal for > five
consecutive days (May to October)
- Winter cold wave duration - Total days with minimum temperature
> 3 °C below the 1961-90 normal for > five
consecutive days (November to April)
- Maximum number of consecutive dry days (days with less than
or equal to 2 mm of rain) in a year
- Greatest five day precipitation total in a year (mm)
- Rainfall intensity (annual rainfall total on rain days (days
with > 1 mm of rain) / number of rain days)
Download data sets (registered
users only)
These data sets have been created with financial support from the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and are being promoted
through the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP). They form part of
the UKCIP02 national climate scenarios prepared for UKCIP by the Tyndall
Centre and Met Office Hadley Centre.
Link
to the UKCIP website
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