The edition of 11 August 2026
Oxford has just had its driest July on record, in 174 Julys of readings going back to 1853, on a figure the publisher still marks provisional.
The whole record for Oxford or the Met Office file this came from.
0.0
mm
Rainfall at Oxford, July 2026
The publisher marks this period provisional; it will be revised.
Oxford is not alone. Fifteen of the thirty-one Met Office stations that reported July recorded their driest July on record, from Camborne's 48-year series to Oxford's 174-year one. Ten more had a top-ten dry July without taking the record. All of these figures are provisional and the Met Office will revise them.
We do not hold the Met Office's national series, so this is a statement about fifteen stations and not about Britain.
Also in the data
Leeds prison is holding 1,076 people in space certified for 641 — 168% full.
The whole record for Leeds or the MoJ bulletin this came from.
On 31 December 2025, 7,412 households in Newham were living in temporary accommodation — 5,320 of them with children.
The whole record for Newham or the MHCLG table this came from.
Humberside handled 14,205 terminal passengers in May 2026 — down 11% on May 2025, when it handled 16,010.
The whole record for Humberside or the CAA table this came from.
How this edition was checked
Each claim above was put to a separate agent with only the figures and the publisher’s dataset notes — not the reasoning that chose it — which tried to kill it on the wrong column, the wrong denominator, a series break, a definition change or a revision. Nothing that failed is on this page. The archived copy of each publisher’s file is in this site’s repository under data/weather-stations/raw/2026-08-11/oxforddata.txt.
From the shelf
Fifteen Met Office stations recorded their driest July on record in the same month
A story we had been watching before today. Developing threads are kept as dossiers with a written trigger — the condition, agreed in advance, that would make them worth publishing — so that what we thought before we knew stays on the record.