Updated: 2026-07-31
The point of measurement closest to Manchester is the Met Office station at Holme Moss, in the county of West Yorkshire, perched at 520 metres above sea level and about 26.1 km east of Manchester city centre. The readings below come from that station, not from Manchester itself. The city sits lower and closer to the Irish Sea, so its actual summer temperatures can differ — often feeling milder in winter and occasionally warmer on settled summer days. But for a long-term, consistent record of what the Manchester area experiences, Holme Moss is the reference point.
The record of 24.5°C was set on 21 June 1989, in the middle of a week that brought warm, stable conditions to northern England. It remains the highest June maximum in the station's historical series, which covers the period from 1977 to 1995 in the dataset used here. In those 19 years of daily readings, no other June day came out warmer. That makes it a genuine local benchmark — a date that older residents around the Peak District might still remember for the clear skies and unusual heat.
What follows is the single top value from the series: the absolute maximum June temperature observed at Holme Moss. This is the number that defines "hottest June day" for this station.
| Temperature (°C) | Date |
|---|---|
| 24.5 | 1989-06-21 |
One entry, but it is the one that matters: 24.5°C, measured on 21 June 1989. For comparison, that is a very warm day for a station sitting at 520 metres in the Pennines. At that altitude, summer days often stay below 20°C, so 24.5°C represents a genuinely exceptional ridge of warm air pushing across northern England — the kind of setup that brings a proper heatwave to the uplands, where the air is usually cooler than in the valleys below.
For anyone in Manchester or the surrounding area planning outdoor events, a June day like this is the rarity worth knowing about. Reaching 24.5°C at Holme Moss implies that lower-lying Manchester would have been several degrees warmer still — though the exact figure for the city is not recorded in this dataset. The 24.5°C reading is nonetheless the official, verifiable measurement for the area's closest long-term station, and it has not been beaten since.
The 1989 event came at the end of a decade known for warm summers in the UK. It is a reminder that even the cool, exposed hill stations can produce notable heat when the conditions align. And because the record has survived for over three decades, it gives a useful sense of how rare extreme June warmth is at this location.
The value comes from the Met Office's MIDAS database — the official national archive of daily weather readings from UK stations. The search identified the highest daily maximum temperature (Tmax) for the month of June at Holme Moss, using every available reading in the station's series. The query returned exactly one result: 24.5°C on 21 June 1989. That is not an average or an estimate; it is the actual thermometer reading that day, as logged in the official record.
The dataset used for this page covers readings from 1977 to 1995 — the complete period for which daily data from Holme Moss are available in this consolidated series. Within that span, no other June day reached a higher maximum temperature.
Holme Moss sits on high moorland between Holmfirth and Glossop, exposed to the winds that sweep across the Pennines. Its altitude of 520 metres means temperatures here run a few degrees below those in Manchester itself on most days. The station is the closest official monitoring point to the city, which is why it serves as the reference for historical weather comparisons. The true Manchester figure on 21 June 1989 may have been higher, but the only verifiable number available is the one measured where the instruments actually stand.
Any differences between Holme Moss and Manchester can be significant: the city's urban heat island, its lower elevation, and its position west of the hills all push temperatures in different directions. For that reason, treat the 24.5°C as the best available historical marker for the wider Manchester region — not as a precise city-centre reading.
June is the first true summer month in northern England, and at 520 metres it can still produce frost on occasion. A reading above 24°C at this station is therefore a notable outlier. The fact that it occurred in 1989, and has not been matched in the years since, tells you how exceptional that late-June spell was. For comparison, the following years in the series — up to 1995 — had no June day that equalled or exceeded 24.5°C, according to the MIDAS data.
If you are looking at this record to decide on an outdoor date, the takeaway is simple: 21 June 1989 was the day the Manchester region's nearest weather station saw its hottest June conditions on record. It remains the date to beat.
Source: Met Office MIDAS archive, Holme Moss station — period 1977 to 1995.
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