If summer 2026 felt particularly warm in Gnosall, the figures suggest your memory isn't playing tricks on you.
Who could possibly forget the (sometimes unbearable) heatwaves that seemed to pass by with the regularity of the 5A bus to Stafford.
Data released today by the Met Office for the ST20 area, comparing this summer with the 1991-2020 climate average, shows a season that was warmer than we're accustomed to, and drier too. You don't say!
There were still grey days, downpours and those familiar moments when you wondered whether putting the washing out would somehow summon a rain cloud. But taken across June, July and August, this was a distinctly warm summer.
Temperatures well above average
Across the three summer months, the average daily high was around 23.1°C.
For comparison, the long-term summer average for the Gnosall area is approximately 19°C.
With an average daytime high of around 23.1°C, it came in roughly four degrees above the longer-term summer figure. And with approximately 143.8mm of rainfall, it was also around a quarter drier than the 1991–2020 average.
That difference of around four degrees is quite substantial when averaged across an entire season. It doesn't mean every day was four degrees hotter, of course. Rather, the balance of warm and hot days pushed the overall average well above what we'd normally expect.
The data also shows how temperatures built steadily through the first half of the year. By midsummer, daytime highs were running conspicuously above the 1991–2020 average before beginning their usual decline towards autumn.
So, if the garden seemed to dry out particularly quickly, the bedroom felt stubbornly warm at night or you spent considerably more time looking for shade, there was some meteorological substance behind it, even if the grass did recover very quickly early September.
It was drier too, but perhaps not as dry as it seemed
Rainfall paints a slightly more complicated picture.
Approximately 143.8mm of rain fell across June, July and August, compared with a long-term summer average of about 192mm.
That makes summer 2026 roughly 25% drier than average in the ST20 area, which is why Severn Trent was constantly reminding us to be frugal with our water. Luckily, we didn't have a hosepipe ban in force.
But the monthly chart is particularly interesting because the rain wasn't evenly spread across the season.
Some periods felt astonishingly dry, while others brought much more substantial rainfall. That's why our recollection of a summer can sometimes differ from what the seasonal statistics eventually show.
A few thoroughly wet downpour days can produce a sizeable chunk of a month's rainfall while leaving most of the remaining days warm and dry.
A warm summer across much of the country
Gnosall wasn't sitting beneath its own private bubble of warm weather. The maps accompanying the figures show that above-average summer temperatures affected large parts of the UK, with particularly strong anomalies across England.
Rainfall was much more geographically mixed. Some areas experienced wetter-than-normal conditions while others were considerably drier, illustrating just how variable British summer weather can be even within a relatively small country.
No wonder it occupies so much of our gossip-time.
For Gnosall, there are practical reasons to keep a close watch on weather trends.
Hotter, drier summers can affect our gardens, mature trees and wildlife, increase demand for water and make some homes uncomfortable hot during prolonged spells of heat.
On the flip side, dry periods interrupted by intense rainfall can create their own problems, because very dry or hard ground doesn't always absorb a sudden deluge particularly well.
And we all know how Gnosall is affected by flash floods. One summer is weather. A succession of summers begins to tell us something more - that we need to start thinking ahead.
