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Open-water swimming weather in Edinburgh

If you're planning anything outdoors in Edinburgh, the city's east coast Scottish position makes its weather genuinely different from Glasgow just 50 miles west — drier, sunnier, but more exposed to North Sea easterlies that can bring bitter cold in spring and haar fog in summer. Winters are colder than most of England but rainfall is moderate, and the city sits in something of a rain shadow from the hills to the west.

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If you're swimming open-water around Edinburgh (Portobello, the Forth, the reservoirs in the Pentlands), the North Sea is colder than the western Scottish coast year-round, and the season runs shorter at both ends than further south — water temperature lags air temperature by several weeks in spring.

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Last updated: 7 May 2026