Updated: 2026-08-06
The nearest long-term measuring point to Glasgow is the Met Office station at Paisley (Renfrewshire), situated 32 metres above sea level and about 11.4 km from the city centre. These are its historical records, not a direct measurement of Glasgow itself. Local conditions – altitude, proximity to the river Clyde, urban heat – can make Glasgow's actual nights differ from Paisley's readings, but this series is the best available reference.
The warmest night on record at Paisley since 1914 is 18.5°C (minimum temperature), registered on 12 July 2005. That night did not drop below 18.5°C – a tropical night in the west of Scotland, a rarity for this latitude. It remains the highest minimum temperature in the entire series, still unsurpassed two decades later.
To put that figure in context: the average July night at Paisley sits at 11.6°C, so the 2005 event was nearly 7 degrees above the typical July minimum – a remarkable anomaly for a station that rarely sees tropical nights. The record was matched exactly once more, on 26 July 2006 (also 18.5°C), but never exceeded. Only five nights in over a century have reached 17.8°C or higher.
These are the five highest minimum temperatures recorded at Paisley between 1914 and 2026. The list is short – only two nights have ever reached 18.5°C, and just five nights have reached 17.8°C.
| Date | Minimum temperature (°C) |
|---|---|
| 2005-07-12 | 18.5 |
| 2006-07-26 | 18.5 |
| 1982-08-05 | 18.0 |
| 1933-06-22 | 17.8 |
| 1943-08-01 | 17.8 |
The monthly breakdown shows how the record minimum varies across the year. Unsurprisingly, July holds the absolute peak (18.5°C), with August close behind (18.0°C) and June reaching 17.8°C. Even in winter, the warmest nights rarely exceed 11°C.
| Month | Record minimum (°C) | Average minimum (°C) |
|---|---|---|
| January | 11.3 | 1.5 |
| February | 11.0 | 1.6 |
| March | 10.6 | 2.7 |
| April | 12.2 | 4.4 |
| May | 13.9 | 7.0 |
| June | 17.8 | 9.7 |
| July | 18.5 | 11.6 |
| August | 18.0 | 11.4 |
| September | 16.7 | 9.4 |
| October | 15.2 | 6.8 |
| November | 13.5 | 3.7 |
| December | 11.1 | 2.1 |
The chart below (table) shows the highest minimum temperature recorded each calendar year at Paisley. It reveals how rare extreme warm nights are: most years peak between 14°C and 16°C. Only a handful of years exceed 17°C, and just 2005 and 2006 reached 18.5°C. The series includes a notable gap: no data for 2012–2025 in this annual aggregation, with the most recent year available being 2026 (13.8°C).
The chart shows the complete annual series. The table lists the most notable years; the full series comes from Met Office.
| Year | Max minimum temp (°C) |
|---|---|
| 1933 | 17.8 |
| 1943 | 17.8 |
| 1975 | 17.7 |
| 1982 | 18.0 |
| 2005 | 18.5 |
| 2006 | 18.5 |
| 2011 | 9.1 |
What stands out from the annual series is the clustering of extreme nights in the last decades of the 20th century and the early 2000s. The 1980s already had 18.0°C (1982), and the mid-2000s delivered the two 18.5°C nights. Yet the 2010s and 2020s have not produced a new absolute record – 2011 shows a particularly low annual maximum of just 9.1°C, the coolest warmest night of the entire series. The most recent available year, 2026, peaked at 13.8°C.
For residents of Glasgow, these Paisley measurements are the closest official benchmark for how warm a summer night can get. The 2005 night remains the reference – a reminder that even in Scotland, tropical nights are possible, though exceptional.
Source: Met Office (MIDAS data), Paisley station – period 1914–2026.
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© 2026 HistoClima · data: Met Office (OGL v3.0) · not affiliated with Met Office · citation permitted with source.