UKCP09: Annual Summer Heatwave Duration Gridded Data for the UK

UK gridded datasets of annual summer heatwave duration values. The data represents the sum of days where the daily maximum temperature exceeds the 1961–1990 daily normal by more than 3°C for at least five consecutive days during May to October. The datasets were created with financial support from the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and promoted by the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP).

Use Cases

• Modeling climate change impacts based on annual heatwave duration metrics.
• Assessing regional heatwave risk and vulnerability across the UK based on gridded temperature data.
• Validating climate model projections against historical heatwave event data.
• Analyzing long-term trends in summer heatwave frequency and intensity.

Strengths

• Data is gridded, providing spatial coverage across the United Kingdom.
• Heatwave metric is defined using a specific, reproducible threshold (3°C above 1961-90 daily normal for ≥5 consecutive days).
• Project is backed by authoritative UK organizations (Met Office, Defra, UKCIP).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data freshness should be verified despite the listed last update date.

Provenance

Source

Met Office

Collection Method

Likely derived from meteorological station observations and climate modeling.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:56.360796; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom