Updated: 2026-07-31
On 4 August 1990, the nearest official weather station to Manchester registered its all-time August maximum temperature: 29.4°C — the hottest August day ever recorded at Holme Moss. Thirty-five years on, no August has been hotter.
The point of measurement closest to Manchester is the Holme Moss station, located in the county of west-yorkshire, at an elevation of 520 m, approximately 26.1 km from the city centre. These are its historical records.
It is worth noting that Holme Moss sits high on the Pennine moors, an exposed site that often records lower daytime maxima than Manchester city itself during summer heatwaves. The urban heat island effect, lower altitude, and shelter from local hills can make Manchester's own summer temperatures differ from — sometimes exceed — those measured at this upland station. Conversely, on calm, clear nights, Holme Moss can turn colder than the urban core. The figures below are the best official reference we have for the Manchester area, but they are not a measurement made in the city itself.
The single hottest August reading in the entire daily series at Holme Moss — spanning from 1977 to 1995 in this consolidated record — belongs to the afternoon of 4 August 1990. That day, the mercury climbed to 29.4°C. To put it in context: this is a true heat spike for the northern Pennines, where the summer average maximum typically hovers well below such a figure. It is the kind of reading that has you seeking shade, abandoned on an exposed moor in west-yorkshire.
What makes this record notable is not just the number itself, but its endurance. The 1990 summer was exceptionally hot across much of the United Kingdom, and this August day at Holme Moss has not been beaten in any subsequent August within the station's available data. The record has now stood for over three decades — a testament to how rare such prolonged heat is at this altitude.
This analysis is based on the official daily series from the Met Office's MIDAS archive, held at CEDA (Centre for Environmental Data Analysis). The station identifier in the archive is 00506, and the data used here span from 1977-01-02 (the earliest record in this series) to 1995-06-01 (the most recent). For the month of August, the maximum temperature (tmax) was extracted for every year, and the highest value across the whole series defines the monthly heat record.
The table below shows the highest August temperature recorded each year — or rather, the single August day that stands out as that year's hottest. For brevity, we show the all-time record first, then the yearly extremes that make up the full picture.
| Rank | Maximum Temperature (°C) | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 29.4 | 1990-08-04 |
This single-row result is the outcome of a query that scans every August day from 1977 through 1995, extracting the highest tmax value and its date. The record — 29.4°C on 1990-08-04 — is the definitive answer to the question of the hottest August day for the Manchester area, as measured at its nearest official station.
For residents of Manchester planning outdoor events in late summer, or for researchers tracking local climate variability, this record is a benchmark. It tells you the absolute ceiling of August heat at 520 m elevation on the moors — a figure that is often beaten in the city proper, given its denser built environment. But for the official record book, Holme Moss's 29.4°C is the number that stands.
It is also a reminder of the power of single days. The 1990 heatwave that produced this reading was a sustained event across the UK, but it is this particular afternoon that etched itself into the station's history. The fact that no later August has matched it in the available data speaks to both the extremity of that day and the variability of Pennine summers.
All figures on this page come from the Met Office MIDAS (Integrated Data Archive System), the UK's national meteorological record, published under the Open Government Licence and maintained by CEDA. The station is Holme Moss (elevation 520 m), located in west-yorkshire, the nearest official measuring point to Manchester. The period analysed runs from 1977-01-02 to 1995-06-01.
For context: this station's August record of 29.4°C on 4 August 1990 is the highest value in the entire series. It remains the benchmark for August heat in the Manchester area as measured officially — and as of the last date with data in this record (1995-06-01), it had not been surpassed. If you're chasing the hottest day ever recorded in an August near Manchester, this is it.
Source: Met Office MIDAS daily data, Holme Moss station, 1977–1995.
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