The UK has broken its hottest summer on record, with provisional Met Office data showing a mean temperature of 16.5C across June, July and August, the highest in records stretching back to 1884.
The figure covers day and night temperatures combined and surpasses the previous record set in 2025 by 0.34C, itself a jump that climate scientists had described as unusually large. England, Wales and Northern Ireland each broke their own mean temperature records for summer. Scotland recorded its joint-sixth warmest summer.
UK hottest summer record driven by five heatwaves and 40 days above 30C
The season brought five widespread heatwaves and 40 days on which temperatures reached 30C or higher, beating the previous record of 34 days, set in 1995. Ten separate days saw temperatures of 35C or above, more than doubling the prior record of five days set in 1976 and matched in 2020. Temperatures of 35C or higher were recorded across four calendar months (May, June, July and August) against a previous best of two months.
Temperatures of 37C or above were recorded on three separate days, itself a new record. Before this summer, the 37C threshold had been crossed only nine times in UK history.
The peak reading of the season was 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August, provisionally placing it as the UK’s fifth-hottest day on record for maximum temperature. It fell short of the all-time high of 40.3C recorded at Coningsby, Lincolnshire in July 2022. In June, Lingwood in Norfolk reached 38.0C on 26 June, surpassing the previous June record of 35.6C set in 1976.
One heatwave at the end of meteorological spring broke the UK’s May temperature record by more than 2C. A separate heatwave in July lasted three weeks in some locations.
Climate change made the UK hottest summer record 130 times more likely
The Met Office says human-induced climate change made the heat experienced this summer 130 times more likely than it would otherwise have been. Going further, the Met Office states that in a climate unaffected by human greenhouse gas emissions, a summer like this would be exceptionally unlikely, roughly a once-in-more-than-1,000-years event. In today’s climate, shaped by the burning of fossil fuels, it should now be expected as roughly a once-in-nine-years event.
Dr Mark McCarthy, Head of Climate Attribution at the Met Office, said summer 2026 was ‘remarkable’ and that extremes of this kind can be expected to occur more frequently in the future because of climate change, according to BBC Weather.
Areas of high pressure dominated the UK for much of the summer, with winds from continental Europe and dry conditions allowing temperatures to rise repeatedly. Some areas saw no measurable rainfall for more than two months. Drought was declared across all of Wales and more than two-thirds of England. Wildfires caused devastation in parts of the country.
Rain returned in early June and again in the second half of August, bringing flash flooding in places. Sheffield recorded more than a month’s worth of rain in the week of 24 to 30 August, more than the city had seen across the rest of the season combined. Despite the prolonged dry spells, the summer is not expected to break any records for dryness across the UK as a whole.
All five of the UK’s hottest summers on record have occurred since 2000. The UK sits on the western edge of Europe, which is warming at roughly twice the global rate. The Met Office notes that land heats faster than the oceans, parts of Europe extend into the rapidly warming Arctic, and shifts in weather patterns have produced more frequent and intense summer heatwaves. Scientists continue to assess the precise contribution of each factor.
The Met Office data remain provisional and are subject to final verification.
