Daily Data from the Radcliffe Observatory site in Oxford

Periods of record

Daily maximum and minimum temperatures are available from April 1815; estimates have been made to cover minor periods of missing data. Monthly, seasonal and annual temperature means are available from December 1813. Until 1849, the thermometers were exposed on a north wall; since August 1849, they have been exposed in a thermometer screen, of the Stevenson type since December 1878. Daily grass minimum temperatures are available from December 1930.

Records prior to 1972 have been converted to degrees Celsius (rounded to one decimal place) from degrees Fahrenheit: some original values are given only to 1 degF resolution. Dates with missing data are left blank.

Note that, for records prior to 1925, the monthly mean temperature may differ slightly from the mean of the daily values, or previously published data, owing to the inclusion of minor corrections for exposure and terminal hour variations prior to that date. Full details on the source and derivation of the records, thermometer exposures, times of observations, etc. are given in Oxford Weather and Climate since 1767, Appendix 1.

Periods of record

Monthly rainfall totals are available for sites in Oxford from 1767, including partial records from the Radcliffe Observatory site from 1772; daily records are available from 1827, although some caution needs to be exercised with regard to these until 1853, as some may represent multi-day accumulations. Estimates have been made to cover minor periods of missing data. Records may differ slightly from previously published data owing to inclusion of new information or corrections.

Records prior to 1972 have been converted to millimetres (rounded to one decimal place) from inches: there may be minor differences between the sum of daily values and the monthly total owing to cumulative rounding errors.

Full details on the source and derivation of the records, raingauge exposures, times of observations, etc. are given in Oxford Weather and Climate since 1767, Appendix 1.

Periods of record

Monthly sunshine duration totals are available from February 1880; daily records have been digitised back to 1921, and will eventually include the entire record. Estimates have been made to cover minor periods of missing data.

Records are given in hours and tenths (rounded where necessary to one decimal place): there may be minor differences between the sum of daily values and the monthly total owing to cumulative rounding errors. Records may differ slightly from previously published data owing to inclusion of new information or corrections.

Full details on the source and derivation of the records, sunshine recorder exposure, times of observations etc are given in Oxford Weather and Climate since 1767, Appendix 1.

• Daily meteorological record dataset [CSV, 4.50 MB]
• Read the accompanying documentation for the daily dataset [TXT, 3 KB]

Burt, Stephen and Burt, Tim, 2019. Oxford Weather and Climate since 1767. Oxford University Press, 544pp.

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