In Leeds, this was a very warm and extremely dull month. The statistics on Philip Eden's site suggested that the North East had barely half the normal sunshine, and I can believe it.

The first week saw near-normal temperatures, and persistent anticyclonic gloom- layers of stratocumulus covering the sky the whole time. It became brighter in the second week with some notable warmth around the 10th and some sunny spells, but then it became dull again.

The 15th to 26th was another extremely dull period, and this time it was generally wet as well, with an exceptional lack of cool nights. Only three days stood out as featuring any sunshine of note- the 16th was dry warm sunny and quite summerlike, while the 20th and 25th featured a mix of sun and showers together with a few rainbows.

The 27th was a remarkable day- sunshine all day, and it must surely have maxed at between 18 and 20C. After the dullness of the past 10 days, it was amazing to see the sun again, let alone see it all day! However, after a day of sunshine and showers on the 28th, it became extremely dull again, while staying warm.

At 42%, this October would appear to have been the lowest scoring October since I started taking weather records, and the lowest scoring of any month since November 2004. Sunshine (or lack of it!) was the main factor here.

Data is again patchy, with no temperature records from 6 to 16 October inclusive, but here are the stats from the dataset I have:

Mean Max 14.5C

Mean Min 9.5C

Precipitation: 75mm (this is the whole month's total; the device kept a record of total rainfall even though it stopped transmitting to the computer)

Highest max: 18.1C (27th)

Lowest min: 6.7C (23rd)