How chilly June turned into flaming June in the Anglia region

Cromer Sunrise in Norfolk with dog walker
Sunrise at Cromer in Norfolk on 26 June 2020 Credit: Lou Henderson

For the first half of the month, June 2020 was heading towards being one of the coldest on ever recorded in East Anglia until a mini heatwave turned things around.

In the end, June overall was warmer and sunnier than normal although, thanks to some pretty hefty rain on just a few days, it was also wetter than average.

Following on from the driest May on record, June was only the second month this year with rainfall totals higher than normal. The other was February.

June 2020 in the Anglia region saw temperatures peaking at 32°C in Cambridgeshire and over the whole month the average temperature was about 1°C above normal.

And overall, on average, there was an extra hour of sunshine each day compared with a 'normal' June in East Anglia.

Blue skies and big shower clouds building at Ramsey St Mary's, Cambridgeshire on 26 June 2020 Credit: Christine Mitchell

The first half of June saw temperatures in the Anglia region well below normal and on course to one of the coldest seen in the area.

The first ten days had an average maximum temperature of just 17°C which is more than 2°C below normal for the time of year.

As is quite normal for June, much of the month's rain came in the form of showers which mean it might rain a lot in one area but a few miles down the road, not so much.

So there was a wide range of rainfall totals from just 40 mm (1.6 inches) at Cromer on the north Norfolk coast all the way up to 106 mm (4.2 inches) less than 40 miles away at Marham.

According to the Met Office, the rainfall total for June 2020 across East Anglia was 57 mm (2.2 inches) which was only a little higher than the long-term average total of 53 mm (2.1 inches).

That made it drier than last June with 87 mm but wetter than June 2018 when there was 7 mm of rain in East Anglia - that was the second driest June on record after 1962.

The 17th June was the wettest day for more than a year on one of the wettest days for many years. Credit: Joanne Joyce

The agricultural research station at Broom's Barn near Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk had a month's worth of rain in a single day in the 24 hours from 10am on the 17th June with 51 mm (2 inches).

Overall the Anglia region recorded 26 mm (1 inch) of rain that day which made in one of the wettest ten days of the past decade.

Rainfall totals in June 2020 in the Anglia region

  • 106 mm in Marham, Norfolk

  • 90 mm in Santon Downham, Suffolk

  • 78 mm in Harpenden, Hertfordshire

  • 71 mm in Stowe, Buckinghamshire

  • 69 mm in Woburn, Bedfordshire

  • 65 mm in Writtle, Essex

  • 52 mm in Wittering, Cambridgeshire

  • 52 mm in Pitsford, Northamptonshire

  • 51 mm in Cambridge

  • 42 mm in Lt Paxton, Cambridgeshire

  • 40 mm in Cromer, Norfolk

Cromer Pier in Norfolk at sunrise on 26 June 2020. Credit: Lou Henderson

  • The weather data used in this article is provisional and may be subject to revision after quality control and after more analysis is carried out.