Met Office Hadley Centre Central England Temperature (HadCET) Series

The Central England Temperature (CET) series is the longest available instrumental record of temperature in the world, with the monthly mean temperature extending back to 1659 and the daily mean temperature series extending back to 1772. The daily and monthly minimum and maximum temperature series extend back to 1878.

These historical temperature series have been constructed to provide a long running temperature record for the Central England region, a roughly triangular area of the United Kingdom enclosed by Somerset, Lancashire and London. The CET value is then calculated as an average of the recorded temperatures for a few stations which are selected as representative of the region as a whole. Although the selected stations have changed over time, due primarily to station closures, the series is homogenised to ensure that it remains consistent.

Stations used in the construction of the CET series between 1772 and 1852 include: Kennington, Crane Court, Lyndon Hall, Syon House, Somerset House, Greenwich Observatory, Chiswick.

Stations used in the construction of the CET series from 1853 onwards include: Radcliffe (Oxford), Cambridge (legacy), Ross-on-Wye, Rothamsted, Malvern, Stonyhurst, Ringway, Squires Gate, Pershore College.

Gordon Manley (1953, 1974) compiled most of the monthly series from 1659 to 1973, and the mean temperature series is adjusted up to 1973 to align with Manley's recorded daily mean temperature values. The series data were updated to 1991 by Parker et al (1992) and comprise the V2 series which is updated with the latest values.

The version controlled CET series is updated annually, with the previous complete year’s values refreshed to ensure that data acquisition and quality control procedures have been completed and ensure the most accurate station temperature values are used. Each version of the dataset will include data up until the end of the previous complete year and an incremental version number will be updated.

If more comprehensive changes are made to the construction of the series, this may constitute a minor/major version number update.

A provisional version of the CET series, with recent data up to the previous day, is available for download on the Met Office Hadley Centre webpage: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/data/download.html

The v1.0.0.0 datasets within the collection were originally pulled over monthly from the Met Office Hadley Centre website on a monthly basis until summer 2022 with data available in the CEDA archive copy to end of July 2022.

Date (Publication): 2006-12-10T02:45:37

Date (Creation): 2006-12-10T02:45:37

Citation identifier: https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/a946415f9345f6da9bf4c475c19477b6

Citation identifier: NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC) / a946415f9345f6da9bf4c475c19477b6

Point of contact

Organisation name	Electronic mail address	Role
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research (MOHC)	unknown	Author
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Custodian
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis	support@ceda.ac.uk	pointofContact
NCAS British Atmospheric Data Centre (NCAS BADC)	badc@rl.ac.uk	Publisher

Maintenance and update frequency: Unknown

Update scope: Series

Keywords

HadCET
temperature
Hadley
Met Office

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

atmospheric conditions

Access constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Please contact the data centre for assistance on accessing data from this dataset collection.

Use constraints: Other restrictions

Other constraints: Under the following licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/, appropriate use of these data may fall under any use. This message is intended as guidance, always read the full licence. When using these data you must cite them correctly using the citation given on the CEDA Data Catalogue record.

Spatial representation type: Grid

Language: English

Topic category

Climatology, meteorology, atmosphere

Begin date: 1659-01-01T00:00:00

End date: 2022-07-31T23:59:59

Unique resource identifier: WGS 84

Distribution format

Name	Version
Contact data centre for format details.

Distributor contact

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis		support@ceda.ac.uk	Distributor

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://catalogue.ceda.ac.uk/uuid/a946415f9345f6da9bf4c475c19477b6	CEDA Data Catalogue Page

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/graphs/index.html	HadCET plots for the current and previous years from the Hadley Centre

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_record_breakers.html	HadCET Record Breakers

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://artefacts.ceda.ac.uk/badc_datadocs/cet/map.html	HadCET Representative Map

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1190	Parker, D. and Horton, B. (2005), Uncertainties in central England temperature 1878–2003 and some improvements to the maximum and minimum series. Int. J. Climatol., 25: 1173-1188. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1190

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370120402	Parker, D.E., Legg, T.P. and Folland, C.K. (1992), A new daily central England temperature series, 1772–1991. Int. J. Climatol., 12: 317-342. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.3370120402

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.49707934006	Manley, G. (1953), The mean temperature of central England, 1698–1952. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc., 79: 242-261. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.49707934006

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/qj.49710042511	Manley, G. (1974), Central England temperatures: Monthly means 1659 to 1973. Q.J.R. Meteorol. Soc., 100: 389-405. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.49710042511

OnLine resource

Protocol	Linkage	Name
	https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1967	Parker, D.E. (2010), Uncertainties in early Central England temperatures. Int. J. Climatol., 30: 1105-1113. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1967

Hierarchy level: Series

Conformance result

Title: Commission Regulation (EU) No 1089/2010 of 23 November 2010 implementing Directive 2007/2/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards interoperability of spatial data sets and services

Date (Publication): 2010-12-08

Statement: Please see data lineage statements for each dataset within this collection for data lineage details.

Metadata

File identifier: a946415f9345f6da9bf4c475c19477b6 XML

Metadata language: English

Character set: UTF8

Hierarchy level: Series

Hierarchy level name: series

Date stamp: 2026-02-25T03:25:51

Metadata standard name: UK GEMINI

Metadata standard version: 2.3

Metadata author

Organisation name	Individual name	Electronic mail address	Role
NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis		support@ceda.ac.uk	Point of contact

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