Like most of Scotland, Edinburgh has a cool, temperate, maritime climate which, despite its northerly latitude, is milder than places which lie at similar latitudes such as Moscow and Labrador. The city’s proximity to the sea mitigates any large variations in temperature or extremes of climate. Winter daytime temperatures rarely fall below freezing while summer temperatures are moderate, rarely exceeding 22 °C (72 °F). The highest temperature recorded in the city was 31.6 °C (88.9 °F) on 25 July 2019 at Gogarbank, beating the previous record of 31 °C (88 °F) on 4 August 1975 at Edinburgh Airport. The lowest temperature recorded in recent years was −14.6 °C (5.7 °F) during December 2010 at Gogarbank.
Given Edinburgh’s position between the coast and hills, it is renowned as “the windy city”, with the prevailing wind direction coming from the south-west, which is often associated with warm, unstable air from the North Atlantic Current that can give rise to rainfall – although considerably less than cities to the west, such as Glasgow. Rainfall is distributed fairly evenly throughout the year. Winds from an easterly direction are usually drier but considerably colder, and may be accompanied by haar, a persistent coastal fog. Vigorous Atlantic depressions, known as European windstorms, can affect the city between October and May.
Located slightly north of the city centre, the weather station at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) has been an official weather station for the Met Office since 1956.
The Met Office operates its own weather station at Gogarbank on the city’s western outskirts, near Edinburgh Airport. This slightly inland station has a slightly wider temperature span between seasons, is cloudier and somewhat wetter, but differences are minor.
Temperature and rainfall records have been kept at the Royal Observatory since 1764. In that time, the warmest month on record was July 1779, with an average temperature of 18.4 °C (65.1 °F), whereas the coldest was January 1814, with a mean temperature of −3.1 °C (26.4 °F). The warmest years on record are 1779 and 1846, both with mean temperatures of 9.8 °C (49.6 °F). The coldest year on record is 1879, with a mean temperature of 6.6 °C (43.9 °F). The wettest month on record was August 1948, with 238.8 millimetres (9.40 in). The driest was February 1934, with 2.3 millimetres (0.091 in). The wettest year on record was 1916, with 992.9 millimetres (39.09 in). The driest year on record was 1826, with 388.0 millimetres (15.28 in) of rainfall.