Updated: 2026-09-10
Glasgow has no weather station of its own, so the closest long-running measuring point is the Met Office station at Paisley in Renfrewshire, sitting at 32 m above sea level about 11.4 km from the city. In its records, the latest spring frost ever logged fell on 26 May 1962, when the minimum temperature dropped to -1.1 °C lowest reading on that date, the latest frost on record for this measuring point. That single date matters to anyone growing fruit: a May frost falls right when apples, pears and soft fruit are in blossom.
For the question that matters to growers — when does the last spring frost usually strike? — the honest answer is that hard frosts in late April and even mid-May are not freak events here. The five latest frosts on record at the Paisley station stretch from early May into the second half of May, which means blossom-risk weather can persist well beyond the point most people start planting out.
These are the five latest spring frost dates recorded at the Paisley measuring point. Every one of them falls in May, and each is a case where blossom would already be open on fruit trees.
| Year | Latest frost date | Minimum temp (°C) |
|---|---|---|
| 1962 | 1962-05-26 | -1.1 |
| 1935 | 1935-05-17 | -0.6 |
| 1915 | 1915-05-15 | -0.6 |
| 1941 | 1941-05-15 | -0.6 |
| 1982 | 1982-05-07 | -0.4 |
Averaged across the whole period, frost is overwhelmingly a winter and early-spring visitor. The monthly picture below shows the average number of days with an air minimum below freezing for each month in which frost has been recorded at this station.
| Month | Average frost days per year |
|---|---|
| January | 8.8 |
| February | 7.6 |
| March | 5.2 |
| April | 1.5 |
| May | 0.1 |
| September | 0.0 |
| October | 0.8 |
| November | 4.5 |
| December | 7.5 |
January leads with 8.8 frost days on average, and December is close behind at 7.5. By March the average drops to 5.2 frost days, then to just 1.5 in April — but that "just 1.5" is exactly the number that catches people out. It is small, yet it is not zero, and the late-frost records above show what happens when that residual April and May risk lands on an open blossom. May averages 0.1 frost days, and September averages 0.0, the quietest month in the frost calendar.
April and May frosts are the dangerous ones for fruit growing, precisely because they arrive after a spell of mild weather has pushed blossom open. The two coldest readings of the late-frost spring are still modest in absolute terms — around -1 °C — but at blossom time that is more than enough to damage buds and emerging fruit. A soft fruit grower near Glasgow should treat the first half of May as a period to monitor rather than one to relax through.
The full annual series shows the latest spring frost logged in each year between 1914 and 2026 at the Paisley measuring point. The month is not uniform: some years close out frost in February, others hold it into May.
The chart shows the complete annual series. The table lists the most notable years; the full series comes from Met Office.
| Year | Last frost date | Minimum temp (°C) |
|---|---|---|
| 1973 | 1973-04-30 | -0.2 |
| 1989 | 1989-04-26 | -0.2 |
| 1996 | 1996-04-06 | -0.1 |
| 1998 | 1998-04-14 | -0.2 |
| 2004 | 2004-03-10 | -0.2 |
| 2007 | 2007-03-21 | -0.2 |
| 2010 | 2010-04-02 | -3.8 |
Many of the annual late-frost readings in this series sit close to -0.6 °C. That is barely below freezing in absolute terms — but blossom is fragile at exactly that threshold. During the years when the last frost fell on 15 May, 17 May or 26 May, fruit trees in the Clyde valley would already have been flowering. The record for the site, the deepest cold ever measured there, is another story entirely: -14.8 °C on 11 January 1982, a mid-winter figure that underlines just how far the deepest cold can drop when the conditions are right.
Reading the year-by-year series is a reminder of how erratic this is. 1933 closed its frost season on 24 February, while 1962 did not close it until 26 May — the widest contrast on record. Any grower or gardener working near Glasgow should plan for the possibility that the last frost arrives deep into May, however mild the preceding weeks have been.
The Paisley measuring point sits at 32 m and 11.4 km from central Glasgow, so its readings are the best local reference available, not an exact measurement of conditions in the city itself. Glasgow's buildings, the Clyde and local elevation can all push things a degree or so in either direction on a frost night, and a sheltered or low-lying garden may run colder than the station suggests. Treat the records here as the closest official baseline, and cross-check with your own local thermometer before committing tender plants or trusting a blossom forecast.
Source: Met Office MIDAS archive — Paisley station, Renfrewshire, 1914–2026, Open Government Licence (OGL v3.0).
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