Agricultural Frost Season near Glasgow: What the Paisley Station Records

Updated: 2026-08-03

The nearest measuring point to Glasgow is the Met Office station at Paisley (Renfrewshire), situated at 32 m above sea level and about 11.4 km from the city centre. These are its historical records, spanning from 1 January 1914 to 2 August 2026. The real climate of Glasgow can differ from this station's readings — urban heat, the Clyde valley, and local sheltering all play their part — so treat these numbers as the best available reference, not as an exact measurement of any single garden in Glasgow.

So, how many agricultural frosts does the region get each year? The Paisley record shows that the year with the most frost days (minimum temperature below 0°C) was 2010, with 75 frost days, and in that same year the lowest temperature recorded was -11.1°C. At the other end of the scale, 2026 so far shows 0 frost days with a minimum temperature of 8.9°C — a strikingly mild year, at least up to the last data entry. That gap of 75 days versus 0 days is the real story of frost in this part of Scotland: it is not a fixed season but a deeply variable one.

When frosts are most likely

Frosts are a winter phenomenon here, with a sharp peak in the dark months. The monthly averages below are drawn from the full period of the station's operation. The first column shows the mean number of days per month when the minimum temperature dips below 0°C; the second column counts the stronger frosts, when the minimum drops below -3°C — the kind of cold that really damages emerging crops and blossom. Taken together, the averages sketch a frost season that typically runs from mid-October through mid-May, with the riskiest spell centred on the deep winter months.

Note that the months of June, July and August do not appear in the table at all — the station has never recorded a frost day in those months across its entire history. For agriculture, this defines the safe growing window. The danger months are clear: January averages 8.8 frost days, December 7.5, February 7.6. Even March still brings 5.2 frost days on average, which is why early spring sowings are a gamble. By May, frost is essentially over, with a mere 0.1 frost day per year on average — one frost day every ten years. The strong frosts (below -3°C) are even more concentrated: January leads with 3.1 days per year, followed by December's 2.8.

Year by year: the range of possibilities

Average figures smooth over enormous variation. The table below shows the two extremes in the station's frost record. It is a compact way to see just how different one year can be from another.

To put flesh on those bones, consider the five harshest years by annual minimum temperature. These are the years when the cold reached deepest:

The five coldest years by annual minimum temperature

Notice how the number of frost days does not always align with the depth of the coldest night. 1982 holds the record for the coldest single night (-14.8°C on 11 January), but recorded only 33 frost days that year. 1979, by contrast, had a less extreme minimum (-13.9°C) yet piled up 67 frost days — a long grind of cold rather than a single shock. For a grower, the 1979 type is often worse: repeated frosts keep the ground frozen and delay every spring operation.

At the other extreme, the five mildest years by annual minimum temperature show what happens when the cold stays away. These are the easiest years for agriculture in the station's record:

The five mildest years by annual minimum temperature

The contrast is blunt: in 1974, the coldest night of the year only reached -2.3°C — barely a frost at all by Scottish standards — and the year totalled just 11 frost days. In 2026, the story is even more extreme, with 0 frost days recorded and the annual minimum sitting at 8.9°C. These are the years when outdoor growing runs almost without interruption.

For comparison, here are the five coldest individual nights ever recorded at the station. Three of them fell within a single week at the end of December 1995:

The five coldest nights on record

The cluster around late December 1995 is remarkable — three nights in a row below -13.8°C. That kind of sustained deep cold is what breaks pipes, kills unprotected perennials outright, and leaves a mark on the landscape for years. The January 1982 record of -14.8°C remains the station's coldest night, unbroken for over four decades.

What does all this mean for anyone working the land near Glasgow? The practical window for frost-free growing is roughly from late May to late September. April still averages 1.5 frost days, and October already brings 0.8 back. The shoulder seasons are unpredictable: a mild April with zero frosts can be followed by a May morning that dips below zero, and those late frosts are the ones that catch fruit blossom and tender seedlings. The averages give you the shape of the year, but the year-to-year variation — from 75 frost days in 2010 to 11 in 1974 — is the real warning. Plan for the worst, hope for the mild, and know that the Paisley record says both are possible.

Source: Met Office MIDAS data, Paisley station (Renfrewshire), 1914–2026.

HistoClima Tools: discover the weather on the day you were born, your wedding day, or your birthday-week statistics.

Legal notice and data source

AI-assisted content from official Met Office data, automatically verified. 🤖 IA-assisted content · Art. 50 EU AI Act

© 2026 HistoClima · data: Met Office (OGL v3.0) · not affiliated with Met Office · citation permitted with source.