The UK is breaking heat and rainfall records far more often as the country’s climate continues to rise, according to a new Met Office report.
The latest State of the UK Climate report, published in the Royal Meteorological Society’s International Journal of Climatology, details the climate in 2024.
It looks at how temperatures have changed over the long term, and highlights how the UK has warmed at a rate of about 0.25C a decade and is now about 1.24C warmer than from 1961 to 1990.
Over the past decade, in some parts of the UK, the hottest summer days have warmed about twice as much as average summer days, according to the report.
The report shows how different parts of the country have borne the brunt of this shift in the climate. Here, Yahoo News has included maps showing where summers have been getting the hottest in the UK.
Where in the UK are summers getting the hottest?
The latest report shows a stark contrast between maximum annual temperatures between the first half of the 20th century and now – with a significant shift occurring from the 1990s and onwards.
Below are a set of maps showing the average number of days per year in which the highest maximum temperature for each county of the UK has exceeded 28C.
There was a hotter period of weather between 1931 and 1960, as shown in these maps. (Met Office)
As shown above, the milestone was reached more often in the period of 1931 to 1960, compared to 1961 to 1990.
The difference is particularly noticeable in the South and South East of England, although there was less change in London and Hampshire.
In its report, the Met Office does note “some annual and decadal variability in the UK’s climate in addition to the ongoing warming due to climate change”.
While the period from 1961 to 1990 was relatively period, with hotter days more persistent in the south of the country, the two maps below show a sharp uptick in temperatures from the 1990s.
The shift towards maximum temperatures has become more extreme since the 1990s. (Met Office)
The period of 1991 to 2020 saw a substantial increase in days breaching the 28C milestone, again most notably in the South and South East.
From 2015 to 2024, the change appears more extreme, with many parts of the South West, Wales, the Midlands and North experiencing an unprecedented number of 28C days since records began.
To put this change into perspective, the UK’s average highest maximum temperature over the most recent decade of 2015–2024 was 35.9C – 2.3C higher than 1991–2020 and 4.5C higher than 1961–1990.
Explaining why this is happening, the report says climate change has a “much greater effect on the extremes of temperature than the mean”.
“Observations show that extreme weather events are to be expected each year as an integral part of the UK’s climate. As has been fairly typical in recent years, floods and storms brought the worst impacts in 2024,” it adds.
How hot will UK summers get?
Four of the five warmest summers on record for England have occurred since 2003, Met Office data shows, suggesting we are in a period of intensifying hot weather.
All of the top 10 warmest years – according to mean temperature – have occurred since the year 2000.
Research published by the Met Office in June warns that heatwaves in the UK “could become longer and hotter due to escalating climate trends”.
Temperatures hit 40C in the UK for the first time on record in July 2022, but scientists say the chance of exceeding this threshold has been “rapidly increasing”.
Senior Met Office scientist Dr Gillian Kay and lead author of last month’s report, said the chance of this happening “is now over 20 times more likely than it was in the 1960s”.
“Because our climate continues to warm, we can expect the chance to keep rising. We estimate a 50-50 chance of seeing a 40C day again in the next 12 years.
“We also found that temperatures several degrees higher than we saw in July 2022 are possible in today’s climate.”
This chart shows how the likelihood of 40C temperatures in the UK has been consistently rising. (Met Office)
Heatwaves, where maximum temperature thresholds (set at different values across the country) persist for three consecutive days or more, are also likely to get longer, the study suggests.
Senior Met Office science fellow and co-author of the report, Dr Nick Dunstone, said: “Our study finds that in today’s climate such conditions could persist for a month or more.
“These findings highlight the need to prepare and plan for the impacts of rising temperatures now, so we can better protect public health, infrastructure, and the environment from the growing threat of extreme heat.”
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