View from the Rear Window - June 2025 ~ Crafty Cabbage

The truth is rarely pure and never simple - Oscar Wilde

This month (June 2025) continued in much the same vein as the previous month (May 2025) - warm, dry and sunny. No surprise then that June 2025 turned out to be England's warmest ever on record. Whilst there wasn't copious amounts of rain, we were very grateful for some rain following a very dry March, April & May.

This month's garden photo was taken on the 17th June when the roses were blooming marvellous (Photo 1).

Photo 1: View from the Rear Window (17th June 2025)

The daily garden photos for June 2025 are collated in Video 1.

Video 1: Daily Photos of the Rear Garden (June 2025)

Summary weather statistics for June 2025 are listed in the Table below. Particularly notable is the high average monthly temperature: equal highest with June 2023 in my records (2020 - 2025). This was down to the high minimum temperature (7 ℃) along with nearly half the days of the month (13/30) having daily maximum temperatures exceeding 25 ℃. Surprisingly, although rainfall was on the low side and sunshine hours on the high side, precipitation occurred on 50% of the days in June 2025.

June 2025
Weather Parameter	Value	Dates
Average Monthly Temperature	18 oC
Maximum Monthly Temperature	33 oC	19th
Minimum Monthly Temperature	7 oC	2nd & 8th
Number of Air Frost Days	0
Number of Hot Days (> 25 oC)	13
Monthly Precipitation	33.2 mm
Greatest 24 h Precipitation	8.0 mm	12th - 13th
Number of Dry Days	15
Monthly Sunshine Hours (estimated)	217
Highest Wind Speed	39 km/h	26th
Heating Degree Days	62.7
Cooling Degree Days	61.8

Both minimum and maximum temperatures increased as the month progressed (Figure 1, click to enlarge). We experienced two official heatwaves (≥ 26 ℃) in the second half of June: 16th to 21st and 27th to 30th June.

Figure 1: Min/Max Daily Temperatures (June 2025)

As noted earlier, it rained on half the days (15/30) of the month though precipitation was 1 mm or less on most of those days (9/15). Sunshine levels generally improved as the month progressed.

Figure 2: Daily Rainfall and Sunshine Data for June 2025

In Figure 3, we compare June temperature data for the past six years (2020 - 2025). Over the last six years, Hereford has consistently seen temperatures ≥30 ℃ in June. This used to be a rare event but is now commonplace thanks to global warming. The mean temperatures over this period (2020 - 2025) suggest a rising trend (Figure 3) though the data are noisy due to weather variability and the coarseness of my temperature readings (to the nearest 1 ℃) from the Davis Weather Station.

Figure 3: June Temperature Data for Hereford (2020 - 2025)

Figure 4 suggests we have seen a steady increase in the number of sunshine hours during the month of June. This strong correlation (R² = 0.93) is illustrated in Figure 5 albeit for a very short time series (6 years). Intuitively, you might think more sunshine would equate with lower precipitation and while Figure 4 does suggest this, the correlation (R² = 0.56) is not as strong (Figure 6). This is not unreasonable if, for example, it tended to rain overnight or the rainfall occurred as one or two intense storms. The maximum wind speed data in Figure 4 (typically under 40 km/h) implies stormy conditions is not a feature of June weather.

Figure 4: June Rain, Wind & Sunshine Data for Hereford (2020 - 2025)

Figure 5: Time Series for June Sunshine Hours (Estimated, 2020 - 2025)

Figure 6: Time Series for June Rainfall (2020 - 2025)

The next three figures are taken from the UK Met Office's monthly report for June 2025 with the position of Herefordshire circled. England & Wales were much warmer or hotter than normal whereas Scotland and Northern Ireland were only warmer than normal. Herefordshire was much warmer than the 1991-2020 average. According to the nearby Credenhill Weather Station, the typical mean daily temperature for Hereford in June is 14.9 ℃; the observed mean daily temperature recorded by my Davis Weather Station was 3 ℃ higher!! Even allowing for the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, that is very warm. Figure 7 indicates Herefordshire was 1.5 ℃ to 2.5 ℃ warmer than the 1991-2020 average in reasonable agreement with my backyard weather station.

Figure 7: UK Mean Temperature Anomalies for June 2025

The western regions of the United Kingdom were wetter than normal whereas the Eastern regions were either dry or very dry. Herefordshire definitely fell into the drier than normal category. The 33 mm of rain recorded in June by my Davis weather station (see Table above) is about 70% of 1991-2020 mean precipitation (48 mm) observed at the Credenhill Weather Station. This agrees well with Figure 8.

Figure 8: UK Rainfall (relative) for June 2025

The western part of the UK had warm, wet and cloudy weather in June (Figures 7-9) in contrast to the hot, dry and sunny weather in the east. Herefordshire straddled the dividing line between these two weather states whilst favouring the eastern conditions rather than the western ones. Sunshine hours (see Table above) for Herefordshire were normal or slightly above normal (Figure 9). My weather station recorded the highest June sunshine hours over the last 6 years so definitely in above average territory.

Figure 9: UK Sunshine Hours (relative) for June 2025

Jobs in the Garden

the usual composting, weeding, tying in raspberry canes, etc but very little irrigation
lots of harvesting: asparagus (the last 8 spears of the season at the beginning of the month), field beans, leaf spinach, courgettes/marrows (3 kg), cucumbers (x27), raspberries (>3.2 kg), strawberries (0.7 kg), cherries (1.4 kg), blackcurrants (1.6 kg), gooseberries (1.6 kg).

Flora & Fauna in the Garden