A series of heatwaves leads Britain to record its hottest summer
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LONDON (AP) — Britain’s sweltering summer of successive heatwaves was the hottest on record, the national weather service said Tuesday.
The season, marked by extreme heat, little rainfall, destructive wildfires, and water restrictions, snapped the record set only a year earlier, the Met Office said, citing provisional data recorded since 1884.
The mean average temperature of 16.5 Celsius (61.7 Fahrenheit) surpassed the 16.1 C (61 F) from 2025. Last year’s record beat the 15.7 C (60.2 F) mark set in 2018.
“These records are now breaking with increasing frequency, reflecting the influence of human-induced climate change,” said Amy Doherty, head of the National Climate Information Center. “Particularly notable is how much we’ve exceeded the previous summer mean temperature record, set just last year.”
The top five hottest summers have all occurred since 2003.
The Met calculated that human-caused climate change had made such a hot summer 130 times more likely. Without human greenhouse gas emissions, a summer that hot would occur once in a millennium, but is now expected once every nine years.
“Our hottest summer ever is a brutal reminder that we’re not waiting for climate change to arrive in Britain; we’re living in the middle of it,” Minister of Climate Transition Katie White said. “With kids too hot to sleep, families worrying about older relatives, farmers watching fields dry out, and firefighters and our armed forces battling wildfires, we’ve all woken up to a reality none of us wants for the people and places we love.”
Heatwaves began in late May and recurred each month of the summer — with two in July.
The U.K. Health Security Agency estimated that 2,877 deaths in England were associated with May and June heatwaves.
The peak temperature of 38 C (100.4 F) in Norfolk on June 26 set a record for the month. The mercury climbed to 38.1 C (100.6 F) in London on Aug. 13 in the hottest day of the year.
England, Wales and Northern Ireland all set records for mean summer temperatures, though Scotland, which was cooler and less dry, tied its sixth warmest summer.
All of Wales and most of England remain in drought conditions.