Fine weather expected for London Marathon

It’s that time of year when tens of thousands of people get ready to take place in the annual London Marathon – an event that attracts lots of spectators to the streets, to cheers participants on.

One of the most important things that influences how tough the 26 mile challenge proves to be, is the weather.

However, with the marathon falling in April, there’s a huge range of weather than can be experienced, with snow or heat not out of the equation. 

Before I take a look ahead at what the weather will deliver for this Sunday’s marathon, I thought I’d take a look back at what has happened in previous years.

The averages

The London Marathon has been taken place since 1981, and if you were to average out the weather on marathon day, you would expect;

Maximum temperature of 15.6C

Minimum temperature of 9.2C

1.2mm of rainfall

5.7 hours of sunshine

The extremes

However, as always, averages smooth out the extremes, and there have been plenty of those during the marathon’s history.

The highest temperature recorded on marathon day was 22.2C on 21 April 1996 and 22 April 2007.

At the cold end of the spectrum, the lowest temperature measured on marathon day was 5.3C on 18 April 2004.

The wettest marathon on record was on 18 April 2004, when an area of low pressure brought heavy rain, with 12.4mm recorded.

The sunniest year was 2009, when 12.3 hours of sunshine was recorded on 26 April – about as much as you can get at that time of the year.

What about this year?

This year, the weather is looking great for both runners and spectators.

A fading weather front will clear southern England in the early hours, so there could be a lot of cloud at 6am. However, through the morning and afternoon, there’ll sunny spells with around 50 per cent cloud cover.

The temperature will be around 7C at 6am, 9C at 9am, 13C at midday, peaking at 16C mid-afternoon, with a light but refreshing westerly breeze.