Why your nostalgia for the summer of 1976 is wrong

Telegraph

14 hours ago

The further away the long, steamy summer of 1976 gets, the greater its mythical status becomes, it seems. Every time the thermometer pushes 30 degrees, hoary phrases like 'but it isn't as hot as it was back then' or 'we survived 1976, it can't get worse' are wheeled out with remarkable regularity.
But a closer look at historical weather data reveals a more complicated picture. In many ways, the summer of 1976 was Britain's first real taste of a new normal. While it was undeniably hot and dry by the standards of the time, recent years have delivered summers that match – or even surpass – its extremes.
While the average highest recorded temperature in the UK between June and August was 21°C, with a searing peak of 35.9°C recorded in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire on July 3, what truly embedded 1976 in the public memory was the extraordinary length of its heatwave. In the UK, a heatwave is defined as a period of at least three consecutive days where daily maximum temperatures meet or exceed a threshold of around 28 degrees (though the Met Office applies slightly different thresholds to different regions in the country).
Most UK heatwaves last for only three or four days, but in 1976, multiple locations in England recorded a 16 consecutive days of temperatures exceeding 30 degrees, from 23 June to 8 July. To this day, that heatwave remains unmatched in terms of its duration.
But the 35.9 degrees recorded in Cheltenham has been surpassed on multiple occasions, most recently in 2022 when the mercury reached a staggering 40.3 degrees in Coningsby in Lincolnshire on 19 July. Even this year, it reached 35.8 degrees in Faversham, Kent on July 1.
The difference between 35°C and 40°C may seem to some as just varying degrees of heat but, meteorologically speaking, it is critical.
'When you are talking about really high temperatures, even the difference of a degree is significant – especially in terms of mortality rates,' Dr Laura Baker, senior NCAS scientist in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, explains.
'Shorter, more intense, very very hot periods have more of an impact than a 16-day hot-but-not-excessively-hot, period,' she added.
The 1976 heatwave was estimated to have led to 700 extra deaths in the UK. In the record-breaking summer of 2022 there were an estimated 2,985 excess deaths associated with heat.
One major factor worsening modern heatwaves and increasing the number of heat-related deaths is the growing prevalence of so-called 'tropical nights', which is where the minimum daily temperature (often recorded at night) is above 20 degrees.
'In 1976, even with that long period, there were no tropical nights,' Dr Baker explained. 'In terms of how you experience a heatwave, that makes a difference. If it doesn't cool down at night, you can't cool your house down.'
This is especially dangerous for elderly or vulnerable individuals who rely on cooler nighttime temperatures to recover from the day's heat. And according to Dr Baker, we'll see more of these 'hot sticky nights' in the near future as heatwaves across the UK – and across the entire Northern Hemisphere for that matter – are becoming more intense, hot, and occurring more frequently.
According to the State of the UK Climate in 2024 report, the UK's climate has steadily warmed from the 1980s onwards, with great consequences for our average daily temperature.
'If we look at the UK's average summer temperature, we can see that 1976 was the UK's warmest year on record until 2003,' its lead author Mike Kendon, climate information scientist in the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, says.
'But since then there have been four years close to or above the 1976 value.'
The summer of 1976 has one more climate record that still holds weight: the severe drought. According to climate scientists, a drought like that is unlikely to occur in that extremity again (but never say never).
The reason it happened in 1976 was because of some very specific preceding conditions. Rainfall was scarce throughout 1975 and the early part of 1976. The intense and prolonged summer heat of 1976 exacerbated these dry conditions, leaving reservoirs depleted before many people even started celebrating their summer holidays, culminating in widespread water shortages across the country.
Consecutive years have also brought droughts and low rainfall. Many will remember how hosepipe bans affected much of the south during prolonged dry spells in 2012. This year too – one of the driest on record – saw bans reinstated across both north and south England in July.
But while 2025 has been notably dry, it's a relatively isolated year. 2024 ranked amongst the wettest on record, leaving reservoirs and water supplies in a slightly stronger position to withstand this year's dry spring and summer.
What also sets 1976 apart, and helps explain its lasting hold on public memory, is not just the severity of the drought, but how unprepared the country was for it. There were no heat action plans, no warning systems. People had to find their own ways to cope.
'The UK would have been less equipped for extreme heat and drought back in 1976 compared to now, and this may be a reason why people still cite the 1976 heatwave as one of the most impactful or memorable to them,' Dr Eunice Lo, senior research fellow in Climate Change and Health at the University of Bristol, said.
Government advice at the time was extremely basic and mostly focused on water rationing. People were told to 'bathe with a friend' and to only flush the toilet for solid waste.
One casualty doctor suggested the best thing you could have in the heat was a pint and a packet of salty crisps – something the UK Health Security Agency heavily advises against now.
A Minister for Drought was appointed. But only at the very end of the drought, days before the rain returned.
'We know that more recent heatwaves were actually hotter than the 1976 event, but in general we have gotten better at coping with heat since then,' Dr Lo explained.
Nowadays, the Met Office can issue 'Extreme Heat' warnings, which did not exist in 1976. In fact, the direct public health messaging recommending people to stay indoors and drink lots of fluids that we see now only became standard after the 2003 heatwave.
'The key here is, of course, that we all listen to the warnings and take actions to protect ourselves and others,' Dr Lo points out.
This presents another stark difference between the summer of 1976 and recent heatwaves.
At the peak of the drought in 1976, water was switched off in some areas. Domestic water supply was limited, which meant people had to diligently collect their water at standpipes.
'You really couldn't imagine that kind of thing now,' Dr Baker says. 'People just couldn't cope. There is less community and everyone is just so desperate for everything to be available. You can't imagine people just going down the street and standing in a queue with a bucket.'
It's highly unlikely that a situation like this will unfold again any time soon but, as a result of climate change, the weather has undoubtedly changed and will continue to do so. In the current climate of the UK, the 1976 summer no longer stands out as extreme.
'It was really really exceptional [at the time] but now it just wouldn't be,' Dr Baker says. 'It would just be another summer, quite hot, but not exceptional.'
Yet 1976 remains a cultural reference point, a sort of gold standard of heat and hardship. Possibly because it marked the moment when the UK first began to realise just how much hot weather could disrupt everyday life.
'Water boards still consider 1976 as their benchmark drought, the thing they need to be prepared for,' Dr Baker explains.
'The question is, should they not be planning for something more extreme? Because it could happen.'