Updated: 2026-09-29
Birmingham has no weather station of its own in the official archive. The closest measurement point is the Halesowen station in West Midlands, sitting at 153 m of altitude, about 13.3 km from the city. Everything below describes what that station recorded — not a private diary of Birmingham itself.
36
consecutive days with a daily maximum of 20 °C or above — the longest warm run in the Halesowen record
The stretch opened on 12 July 1990 and did not break until 16 August 1990. Thirty-six days in a row where the thermometer cleared the 20 °C mark every single afternoon. For a region better known for grey skies and drizzle, that is a full calendar page of summer without a single interruption.
Meteorologists tend to talk about "warm" days when the maximum temperature reaches 20 °C. It is a modest threshold, but a useful one: it separates the genuinely pleasant outdoor days from the merely mild ones. The 1990 run matters precisely because it never dropped below that line — no cool interruption, no single overcast afternoon breaking the sequence.
The Halesowen station has measured temperatures from 2 January 1946 right through to 31 December 2003. For the annual averages and year-by-year counts on this page, only complete years are used: 1956 to 2003.
Long warm spells are not the norm in the West Midlands. Most summers deliver a few good weeks, punctuated by Atlantic fronts that drop afternoon temperatures back below 20 °C. A 36-day unbroken run means the weather pattern locked into a stable, dry, warm setup and simply refused to shift. The 12 July to 16 August window covers the heart of the school holidays and the peak of the cricket season.
That 1990 record still stands untouched in the archive. No other consecutive stretch in the record matches it.
The table below shows, for each calendar month across the whole record, the average daily maximum, the highest maximum ever measured in that month, and how many days of observation back it up.
| Month | Average daily maximum (°C) | Highest maximum on record (°C) | Days of observation |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 6.3 | 14.3 | 1452 |
| February | 6.7 | 16.8 | 1328 |
| March | 9.4 | 21.7 | 1457 |
| April | 12.2 | 25.4 | 1410 |
| May | 16.0 | 27.0 | 1457 |
| June | 19.0 | 31.6 | 1409 |
| July | 21.0 | 32.6 | 1456 |
| August | 20.6 | 34.7 | 1457 |
| September | 17.9 | 27.2 | 1410 |
| October | 13.9 | 26.3 | 1457 |
| November | 9.4 | 16.9 | 1410 |
| December | 7.1 | 15.3 | 1457 |
Read the averages down the column and the warm season writes itself. July is the only month whose average daily maximum reaches 21.0 °C; August follows at 20.6 °C. June sits at 19.0 °C — just short of the 20 °C line — and September drops back to 17.9 °C. That is the physical reason warm spells like the 1990 one cluster around mid-July to mid-August: it is the only stretch of the calendar where the average itself is at or above the 20 °C threshold.
The extremes tell a second story. August holds the highest maximum of the entire record at 34.7 °C, and July reaches 32.6 °C. Even the shoulder months can surprise: October has hit 26.3 °C and April has climbed to 25.4 °C. Those are individual hot afternoons, though — not sustained warm seasons.
For the complete years between 1956 and 2003, the archive does not provide a reliable count of days at or above 20 °C on a year-by-year basis. The table below lists the years covered by this dataset; the daily counts themselves are not available, so no annual total is shown.
| Year | Days at or above 20 °C |
|---|---|
| 1956 | — |
| 1957 | — |
| 1958 | — |
| 1959 | — |
| 1960 | — |
| 1961 | — |
| 1962 | — |
| 1963 | — |
| 1964 | — |
| 1965 | — |
| 1966 | — |
| 1967 | — |
| 1968 | — |
| 1969 | — |
| 1970 | — |
| 1971 | — |
| 1972 | — |
| 1973 | — |
| 1974 | — |
| 1975 | — |
| 1976 | — |
| 1977 | — |
| 1978 | — |
| 1979 | — |
| 1980 | — |
| 1981 | — |
| 1982 | — |
| 1983 | — |
| 1984 | — |
| 1985 | — |
| 1986 | — |
| 1987 | — |
| 1988 | — |
| 1989 | — |
| 1990 | — |
| 1991 | — |
| 1992 | — |
| 1993 | — |
| 1994 | — |
| 1996 | — |
| 1997 | — |
| 1998 | — |
| 1999 | — |
| 2000 | — |
| 2001 | — |
| 2002 | — |
| 2003 | — |
If you are choosing dates for a wedding, a festival or a hiking trip near Birmingham, the archive points to a fairly narrow sweet spot. Warm days are not evenly spread: they concentrate on either side of high summer, and the reliably warm core runs from late June into the first half of August. The shoulder months occasionally deliver a scorching afternoon — October's 26.3 °C and April's 25.4 °C prove that — but they do not deliver long spells.
The 36-day run of 1990 is the outer edge of what this station has seen. It is not a typical summer; it is the longest one on record. A more realistic expectation is a warm season built from shorter bursts, with the gaps in between filled by the changeable Atlantic weather that defines the region.
A word of caution: Halesowen sits at 153 m of altitude, about 13.3 km from Birmingham. Urban heat effects, elevation differences and the lay of local valleys mean the city's own temperatures can diverge from the station readings. This data is the best official reference available for the area — measured where it is measured, by the instruments that actually exist.
Source: Met Office MIDAS archive. Station: Halesowen, West Midlands. Warm-season record period: 1956–2003 (complete years). Data licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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