UK on observe for record-breaking warmest 12 months | EUROtoday

The 12 months 2025 is on observe to be one of many UK’s warmest years on report, becoming a member of 2022 and 2023 within the high three warmest years.

The Met Office has stated that the imply temperature worth for this 12 months, as much as 21 December, is monitoring nicely forward of the earlier record-holding 12 months, 2022, though a colder spell between Christmas and New Year may make it an in depth name.

Four of the UK’s final 5 years will seem within the high 5 warmest years in a sequence from 1884, which the forecaster warned was “an indication of just how fast our climate is changing.”

With a projected common worth of 10.05C, 2025 may beat 2022, the place the common temperature was 10.03C. The 12 months 2023 follows on after, with a mean of 9.97C, whereas 2014 and 2024 spherical out the highest 5 years with respective temperatures of 9.88C and 9.79C.

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All top-ten warmest years can have occurred within the final twenty years. If the report is confirmed, this will probably be solely the second 12 months in observational information the place the UK’s annual imply temperature has exceeded 10.0C.

Mike Kendon, a senior scientist within the Met Office’s local weather info staff, stated this record-high wouldn’t be a shock given how the UK’s annual temperature has risen by round 1.0C during the last 4 many years.

He stated: “If confirmed at year end, this will be the second annual UK temperature record for the UK this decade with the previous being in 2022. This should come as no surprise. Over the last four decades we have seen the UK’s annual temperature rise by around 1.0C. We will have to wait for the year end before confirming 2025’s final number, but at this stage it looks more likely than not that 2025 will be confirmed as the warmest year on record for the UK.

“However, it will not be long until this record is broken again. Since the start of the twenty first century a new record has been set for UK annual mean temperature no less than six times – in 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014, 2022 and now 2025 (if confirmed) – each record progressively warmer than the last. In terms of our climate, we are living in extraordinary times. The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in observational records back to the nineteenth century.”

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Already, 2025 has been topped the sunniest 12 months on report for the UK, in keeping with provisional Met Office statistics. The UK recorded 1,622 hours of sunshine up till 15 December, beating its earlier sunniest 12 months set in 2003, in a sequence which dates again to 1910.

Summer 2025 was formally the warmest summer season on report for the UK because the imply temperature from 1 June to 31 August stood at 16.10C, 1.51C above the long-term meteorological common.

The Met Office has additionally predicted that 2026 will seemingly be one other 12 months above 1.4C; the central estimate for the forecast subsequent 12 months is at present 1.46C, decrease than the worth of 1.55C recorded in 2024.

Today:

Cloud lingering, with brighter breaks usually within the west. Dry for many however pockets of drizzle nonetheless potential. Turning breezier within the east and south, feeling colder in consequence.

Wednesday to Friday:

Cloud breaking into the Christmas interval with extra sunny spells rising. Largely dry, but additionally turning colder with a notable wind chill throughout England and Wales.