The Met Office's annual climate report released on Wednesday (July 15) revealed the average hottest day of the year had warmed by more than 4.5 degrees Celsius in parts of southeast England compared with 1961-1990, while the number of days above 30 degrees Celsius had more than quadrupled in London.
"In the 20th century, one in five years, we didn't reach 30 degrees anywhere in the UK all year. That might seem quite surprising now, but that is what the observations tell us," said the climate information scientist Mike Kendon, lead author of the State of the UK Climate report.
The report also found 2025 was Britain's warmest year since records began in 1884, while the latest decade was 1.33 degrees Celsius warmer than 1961-1990.
Britain's Met Office said 2025 was the sixth time this century that Britain's annual temperature record had been broken.
The agency said it would expect records to be broken again within years, and Kendon said the evidence showed that the climate of the last century was no more.
The findings come after a succession of heatwaves across Britain and Europe this year that have shattered temperature records, fuelled wildfires and led to thousands of so-called excess deaths.
Posted by: Alma Angeles/NET25 News
