The UK just had its hottest summer ever

The UK’s dry, hot and sunny summer has provisionally entered the record books as the hottest season for the country since records began in 1884.

The average temperature for the months of June, July and August was 16.5°C (61.7°F), the national weather service, the Met Office, said on 1 September, blowing through the previous summer record of 16.1°C (61°F)  set just last year.

“The conditions we’ve seen this summer have broken UK climate records once again,” said Amy Doherty at the Met Office in a statement.

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Summer in the UK began with the second warmest June on record, followed by the second-warmest July. But the heat remained almost constant throughout the three-month period, with 38°C (100.4°F) recorded for the first time in June in Norfolk, and 38.1°C (100.6°F) recorded at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August.

Much of England is now in the grip of a severe drought after rainfall vanished from many parts of the country during July. The hot, dry conditions have damaged crops, strained healthcare systems and triggered severe wildfires.

Fossil fuel emissions fuelled the high temperatures, with climate change making a summer like 2026 around 130 times more likely to occur, the Met Office said.

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“In a climate unaffected by human emissions of greenhouse gases, a summer like this would be exceptionally unlikely, i.e. 1 in over 1,000 years,” Mark McCarthy at the Met Office said in a statement. “In our current climate, which is changing because of the effect of burning of fossil fuels, we should now expect this to be roughly a 1 in 9 year event.”

The top five warmest summers for the UK have all occurred since 2003. This trend will only intensify in the future as rising global temperatures cause summers in the UK to be increasingly hot and dry. Under 4°C of warming, the summer just gone would be considered cool or below average for the UK, the Met Office said.

In response to the announcement, Ruth Fuller at the World Wildlife Fund said in a statement: “These stark figures prove what we have been experiencing first hand, we are getting hotter and hotter. And the climate will continue to heat up until we cut our emissions to net zero.”