High Heaton Weather and Air Quality – January 2026

Weather 

January 2026 was generally cold, dull, and wet. Snow fell on the morning of Saturday 3^rd and settled to a depth of 3cm. The next 48 hours were very cold with a hard frost in the evenings, so the snow remained lying for several days – the first time this has happened for almost five years. There was some precipitation (usually rain) on 21 days of the month, with a total of 71mm being recorded. This is 40% more than the average for January and is the third January in succession with substantially more rain than usual. It was also a cold month with an average temperature of 3.7°C compared to the 30-year mean of 4.2°C. The coldest day was Sunday 4^th with a maximum temperature of 0.7°C, and the month’s minimum temperature was -3.6°C at 3am on Monday 5^th. The maximum temperature was 10.4°C at 2pm on Monday 12^th, this being the only day that it reached double figures.  Storm Chandra arrived on Tuesday 27^th. It mainly affected the south of the country, but it did bring us a wet and windy day, and it was our wettest day of the month with 17mm of rain falling. 

Air Quality 

It was a relatively poor month for air quality with an average PM2.5 particle concentration of 17µg/m3, which is above the WHO target of 10µg, but below the UK’s target of 25µg. Nevertheless, the air quality was in one of the three ‘good’ bands on all but three days of the month. On those three days, the 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th, it was in band four, which means that those with lung or heart problems and who experienced symptoms, should consider reducing physical exertion, especially when outdoors.

John Telfer