Extreme Heat Days per Year in Eskdalemuir

Updated: 2026-08-11

How common are hot days in a place better known for rain and hills than for summer heat? The answer, based on the complete daily record held by the Met Office from 1910 through 2026, is that genuinely extreme heat is rare, but it does occur. This article looks at how often the maximum temperature reaches or exceeds 28°C, 26°C, and 23°C each year, and what that tells us about the changing climate of this corner of southern Scotland.

The dataset covers the period from 1 January 1910 to 10 August 2026, and comes from the official Met Office MIDAS archive. Eskdalemuir’s station is part of the UK national weather station network, and its long series gives us a reliable picture of how heat days have varied across more than a century.

The hottest day ever recorded here

The record-breaking day was 19 July 2022, when temperatures reached 32.3°C. For context, the next hottest days in the entire series were 28 June 2018 (29.9°C), and 3 July 1976, 25 July 2019, and 24 June 2026 (all at 29.8°C). No other day in the station's history has reached 30°C, so 32.3°C stands clearly above everything else — a reminder that even in the cooler north of Britain, exceptional heat can happen.

What counts as an extreme heat day?

Meteorologists use different thresholds to define heat. For this analysis, three levels are tracked:

• Days above 28°C — the most extreme category, very rare here.
• Days at or above 26°C — strong heat.
• Days at or above 23°C — warm days, noticeable but not extreme.

The number of days above 28°C is the strictest measure of extreme heat, and the annual series shows how uncommon it is. Some years have none; a handful have a few. The highest annual count of days above 28°C on record is 3, which happened in 1934 and again in 2026. Similarly, 1933, 1976, 2006, 2009, and 2018 each had 2 such days. For most years, the figure sits at 0.

Year-by-year series of heat days

The table below shows, for every year from 1910 to 2026, the number of days above 28°C, days at or above 23°C, days at or above 26°C, and the highest maximum temperature of that year.

Which months see extreme heat?

When hot days do occur at Eskdalemuir, they are almost exclusively a summer phenomenon. The data show the average number of days per year above 28°C by month, and only three months have ever recorded such days: June, July, and August. June leads with an average of 1.5 such days per year, followed by July at 1.3, and August at 1.0. No other month has reached 28°C in the station's history.

A closer look at the warmest years

Some years stand out for their number of warm days. In 1976, for example, there were 25 days at or above 23°C, the highest count of any year in the series, and 9 days at or above 26°C. That year is famous across the UK for its long, dry summer, and Eskdalemuir was no exception. More recently, 1995 saw 23 days at or above 23°C, and 1975 had 22. In 1947, there were 20 such days. The year 1933 recorded 18, as did 1955.

For the most extreme category — days above 28°C — the highest annual counts are 3, achieved in 1934 and in 2026 so far. The fact that 2026 already matches that number by early August is notable, especially since the year's highest temperature so far is 29.8°C, which is also the joint third-highest maximum ever recorded at this station.

Context: how rare is extreme heat here?

It is worth emphasising how unusual the 32.3°C of 19 July 2022 is. The second-hottest day on record is 29.9°C, set on 28 June 2018. That means the record is more than 2°C above everything else in the series — a remarkable gap. For a station in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, such temperatures require very specific weather conditions: a warm southerly or easterly flow, clear skies, and often a pronounced fohn effect over the hills. These conditions are met only rarely.

Looking at the long-term series, there is no simple pattern of steady increase in extreme heat days. The 1930s and the 1940s had several warm years, as did the mid-1970s and mid-1990s. The 2000s and 2010s also produced notable years, including 2006, 2013, 2018, and 2021. The overall impression is one of variability, but with the record high occurring in the recent past (2022), and with 2026 already showing 3 days above 28°C, it is fair to say that extreme heat, while not frequent, is a live feature of the current climate at this location.

Streak of consecutive hot days

For those planning outdoor events or managing crops, it can be useful to know whether hot days tend to cluster. Looking at the annual counts, years with many warm days (at or above 23°C) often have a handful of consecutive warm spells, but the data presented here does not isolate individual streaks. What is clear is that in the warmest years — such as 1976 with 25 days, or 1995 with 23 — the heat was spread across the summer rather than concentrated in a single long run.

Methodology and data source

All figures in this article come from the official records of the Met Office, the United Kingdom's national meteorological service. The station at Eskdalemuir has been collecting daily temperature data since 1910, and the series used here runs from 1 January 1910 to 10 August 2026. The data are part of the Met Office MIDAS archive, which is maintained by the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis (CEDA). The three thresholds used to define heat days — above 28°C, at or above 26°C, and at or above 23°C — are standard reference points for assessing warm and hot weather in a UK context.

Source: Met Office — Eskdalemuir station, 1910–2026.

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