High Heaton Weather and Air Quality – October 2026

Weather

October was generally quite mild with the temperature reaching double figures every day, and no air frosts being recorded. The average temperature was 10.8°C which is 0.5°C above the mean for October. Every month this year except January has been warmer than average. The maximum temperature was 19.8°C at 1.15pm on Monday 5th, and the minimum temperature was 3.3°C at 12.45am on Friday 23rd.

Two named storms crossed the UK in quick succession. Austen arrived on Friday 23rd but was well south of us and had little effect other than some heavy rainfall. Boleo arrived the next day and although it mainly affected Scotland it brought us two days of gale force wind. The maximum wind speed in High Heaton was a gust of 45mph at 8.45am on Sunday 25th.

Total rainfall was 59mm which is 88% of the average for October. The wettest day was Friday 23rd when 14mm of rain fell courtesy of Storm Austen.

Air Quality

The average PM2.5 particle concentration was 5.5 µg/m3, which is slightly higher than recent months, but well within the target of 10 µg. The Air Quality Index was in one of the three ‘good’ categories on the first 30 days of the month (28 of them at level one).  The only exception was on October 31st when it was at level four, which is in the moderate category. The average PM2.5 concentration that day was 40 µg/m3, probably caused by Hallowe’en fireworks.

John Telfer