The UK has just experienced its hottest summer on record, caused by human-induced climate change, the national weather bureau has said.
An average temperature of 16.5°C makes the summer of 2026 the warmest in the UK since records began in 1884, the Met Office said in its provisional figures on Tuesday.
It was also one of the sunniest summers since 1910 featuring the third-driest July on record – with England recording its driest July when drought was declared across half the country.
The hot summer followed a record-breaking heatwave in late spring. June was the second-warmest on record in Britain and it was followed by the second-warmest July. A spate of rain in late August cooled temperature figures for that month.
It was the consistency of the warmth throughout the season that resulted in a new UK summer mean temperature record provisionally being set, exceeding the record set last year by 0.4°C.
“The conditions we’ve seen this summer have broken UK climate records once again,” said Dr Amy Doherty, who leads the National Climate Information Centre at the Met Office. “These records are now breaking with increasing frequency, reflecting the influence of human-induced climate change on the temperatures we’re experiencing in the UK.
“Particularly notable is how much we’ve exceeded the previous summer mean temperature record, set just last year.”
For decades, the UK's hottest summer was in 1976, when the country baked under extreme heat and drought that drove up food prices. The famous summer of 1976 has now been reduced to the seventh-hottest on record. The five warmest summers have each occurred since 2003, with the highest temperatures coming this year and last.
Average daytime temperatures this year were also the hottest on record, surpassing those of 1976.
The highest temperature of this summer was 38.1°C at Kew Gardens, London, recorded on August 13. Lingwood in Norfolk set a new daily temperature record for June, when it reached 38.0°C. A total of 54 Met Office weather stations broke their daily maximum temperature record this summer.
One in a thousand
Summers like this would occur naturally only once in more than 1,000 years in a climate unaffected by the greenhouse-gas emissions, Met Office scientists have warned.
Their analysis found the record-breaking summer was made around 130 times more likely because of human-induced climate change.
They used a peer-reviewed method that analyses two large sets of computer simulations, with one removing human influence on greenhouse gas concentrations. The rapid analysis found the estimated return period for a summer like 2026 in a natural climate to be 1,148 years.
Climate projections indicate UK summers will continue to become hotter, said Dr Mark McCarthy, head of climate attribution at the Met Office. “The summer of 2026 has been remarkable and is an example of the extremes we can expect to see more frequently as a consequence of human-induced climate change,” he said.
“Our analysis shows a summer like the one we’ve just experienced is now around 130 times more likely because of climate change. In a climate unaffected by human emissions of greenhouse gases, a summer like this would be exceptionally unlikely, ie, one in over 1,000 years. In our current climate, which is changing because of the effect of burning of fossil fuels, we should now expect this to be about a one-in-nine-year event.
“The attribution study we conducted at the end of summer 2025, which at the time was record-breaking, found that we could experience even hotter summers in our current climate. Just a year later, we’re already seeing this play out, with the 2026 summer average temperature 0.4°C higher than 2025, a significant margin for a seasonal temperature.”
This warming trend is expected to continue as the global average temperature increases in response to emissions of greenhouse gases.
Met Office climate scientists also analysed this summer against global climate-change projections. The temperatures of summer 2026 would be considered a hot summer were global warming limited to 2°C.
“Summer 2026 would be around average for a UK summer in a world 2.5°C-3°C warmer than the pre-industrial period,” ,” said Dr James Pope. “However, in a world that has warmed by 4°C due to continued emissions, summer 2026 would be considered cool or below average,” said Dr James Pope.
“This summer will also be remembered for how dry it has been, particularly in the south in July. Looking at climate projections for rainfall, this summer fits closely to what we would expect an average summer to look like in the UK under 3°C of global warming, as we expect summers to become both hotter and drier in the future.”
