Version: 1.0 | Published: 8 May 2026 | Updated: 7 days ago
Air Temperature Indicators per LAD in 2023
Dataset
Summary
Description:
This dataset provides comprehensive temperature indicators aggregated to Local Authority District geographies for the United Kingdom. The dataset includes annual temperature measures for 2023, seasonal indicators (winter, spring, summer, and autumn), including summer maximum and winter minimum, extreme weather event indicators (hot and cold spells), temporal variability measures (standard deviation across seasons), and temperature anomalies relative to a 1884-1900 baseline. The underlying source data is the HadUK-Grid Gridded Climate Observations at 1km spatial resolution (v1.3.1.ceda, 1836-2024), published by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services. The aggregation was performed using the Local Authority Districts (December 2021) Boundaries GB BUC by calculating the weighted mean of all grid cells falling within each Local Authority District geographies.
Contact Point:
Documentation
Documentation:
The dataset contains 16 temperature-related variables for each Local Authority District (LAD): (1) Annual measures: mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures; (2) Seasonal measures: mean temperature for all four seasons (winter, spring, summer, autumn), plus summer maximum and winter minimum temperatures; (3) Temporal variability: standard deviation across the four seasonal temperatures; (4) Extreme event indicators: number of extreme hot days (≥30°C), number of 3-day hot spells (≥25°C), number of extreme cold days (≤0°C), and number of 3-day cold spells (≤2°C), reported as both mean values within each LAD; (5) Climate anomaly measures: temperature anomalies relative to 1884-1900 baseline: absolute anomaly in degrees Celsius and standardized anomaly in standard deviations. Geographic identifiers include LAD codes and names. This data is provided in two distinct formats: a CSV file, which contains the tabular data; and a GPKG file, a geospatial format that combines the tabular data with the LAD boundary geometries.
Coverage
Spatial
Spatial Coverage:
United Kingdom
Geographical Levels:
LAD
Temporal
Start Date:
Annual: 01-01-2023:31-12-2023; Summer: 01-06-2023:31-08-2023; Winter:
01-12-2023:29-02-2024; Baseline: 01-01-1884:31-12-1900
Frequency:
Annual, seasonal, and daily (for extreme event detection)
Date of Latest Release:
08 May 2026
Date of First Release:
28 April 2026
Provenance
Origin
Purpose:
HadUK-Grid data are quality-controlled observational data interpolated to a 1km
grid. Coverage might differ across England, Wales, and Scotland depending on
ground-station coverage, with slightly lower station density in Northern Ireland
and remote areas. Temporal standard deviations capture seasonal temperature
variation. Hot and cold spell indicators are based on established threshold
definitions aligned with UK Met Office and UK Health Security Agency criteria.
It is important to note that the underlying input data has a spatial resolution
of 1km x 1km, which should be considered when interpreting results for
administrative areas finer than this scale. Further technical details are
available in the HadUK-Grid documentation at:
https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/f02cc6ddd92f45b18b9ab6ab544df7d9
Source:
The underlying data source is the HadUK-Grid dataset, a comprehensive collection of gridded climate observations produced by the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services. HadUK-Grid combines quality-controlled observations from the UK Met Office's weather station observations and uses natural neighbour interpolation to generate a regular 1km grid. The dataset is described in: Hollis, D., McCarthy, M., Kendon, M., Legg, T., Simpson, I. (2019): HadUK-Grid—A new UK dataset of gridded climate observations. Geoscience data journal, 6(2), 151-159. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/gdj3.78. Daily maximum temperatures were used to identify hot spells (3+ consecutive days ≥25°C or single days ≥30°C during June-August 2023). Daily minimum temperatures were used to identify cold spells (3+ consecutive days ≤2°C or single days ≤0°C during December 2023-February 2024). Temperature anomalies were calculated by comparing 2023 annual mean temperatures against the 1884-1900 baseline period mean and standard deviation for each pixel and then aggregate to the LAD. The aggregation was performed using the Local Authority Districts (December 2021) Boundaries GB BUC, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Geography Portal (https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/datasets/ons::local-authority-districts-december-2021-boundaries-gb-buc-1/about) by calculating the weighted mean of all grid cells falling within each Local Authority District (LAD) geography.
Collection Status:
1.0
Author 1
Name Organisation:
Imago: Data Service for Imagery
Family Name Person:
Martina Pardy
Access and Governance
Usage
Data Use Requirements:
None
Access
Access Rights:
CC-BY-4.0
Licence:
CC-BY-4.0
Format and Standards
Estimated Dataset Size:
104KB, 78.8MB
Vocabulary Encoding Scheme:
EPSG:27700, OSGB36/British National Grid