Updated: 2026-07-29
76 frost days in 1892 — the highest on record. That winter, Stornoway Airport logged more than two months of mornings below 0 °C. The running average across 152 years of data has settled at 32.7 frost days per year by 2024.
Stornoway Airport, sitting on the Isle of Lewis at the edge of the Atlantic, experiences a famously mild climate for its latitude. Yet the contrast between years is wide: the 1873–2024 Met Office series shows a span from 5 frost days in 2014 to 76 in 1892. A frost day here means any calendar day where the official minimum temperature (tmin) dropped below 0 °C — that is, a morning with a hard frost.
The lowest total in the modern record occurred in 2014, with just 5 frost days. That year’s mean minimum temperature was 6.9 °C, the joint-highest in the entire series (alongside 2006). At the other extreme, 1892 stands alone with 76 frost days and a mean minimum of 3.4 °C — the coldest in the 152-year record. The runner-up, 1969, had 75 frost days, still shy of the 1892 mark by 1 day. That record remains unbroken for 132 years.
The long-term trajectory shows a gradual decline in frost frequency. The running average began at 10.0 in 1873 (1873 itself, a notably mild year), climbed to a peak above 47 in the late 1870s, and by 2024 had fallen to 32.7. That means the climate since the 1990s has been delivering roughly 10 to 15 fewer frost days per year than the average of the 1880s–1940s.
The chart shows the complete annual series. The table lists the most notable years; the full series comes from Met Office.
| Year | Frost days | Running average |
|---|---|---|
| 1900 | 33 | 42.5 |
| 1901 | 44 | 42.5 |
| 1902 | 41 | 42.5 |
| 1903 | 33 | 42.2 |
| 1904 | 43 | 42.2 |
| 1906 | 43 | 41.7 |
| 2024 | 18 | 32.7 |
Another way to see the same trend: the annual mean of daily minimum temperatures (tmin). The coldest year was 1892 at 3.4 °C; the warmest were 2006 and 2014, both at 6.9 °C. Five of the top ten warmest mean minima have occurred since 2002: 2006 (6.9), 2014 (6.9), 2002 (6.6), 2007 (6.6), and 2023 (6.6).
Here are the years with the highest and lowest frost counts, and the coldest and warmest mean minima. Note that the same year can appear on both lists only if its frost days and mean minimum tell a consistent story — 1892 is the coldest by every measure, and 2014 the mildest.
| Year | Frost days | Mean min temp (°C) |
|---|---|---|
| 1892 | 76 | 3.4 |
| 1969 | 75 | 4.5 |
| 1877 | 67 | 3.8 |
| 1970 | 65 | 4.6 |
| 1895 | 64 | 4.3 |
| 1879 | 54 | 4.2 |
| 2014 | 5 | 6.9 |
| 1934 | 8 | 6.4 |
| 1938 | 9 | 6.5 |
| 1939 | 9 | 6.6 |
| 2007 | 9 | 6.6 |
| 1873 | 10 | 5.4 |
| 1920 | 10 | 6.4 |
| 1943 | 10 | 6.0 |
Take 1934 — only 8 frost days in the entire year. That winter was so mild that the mean minimum for the whole year reached 6.4 °C. Compare that to 1892: a mean minimum of 3.4 °C and 76 frost mornings. That’s a span of 71 frost days between the mildest and the coldest year in the record.
Source: Met Office MIDAS (Integrated Data Archive System) — Stornoway Airport station (ID 00054), 1873–2024. Data under Open Government Licence v3.0 via CEDA.
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© 2026 HistoClima · data: Met Office (OGL v3.0) · not affiliated with Met Office · citation permitted with source.