Extreme weather is becoming normal says The Met Office as it warns that the UK is breaking heat and rainfall records increasingly frequently as its climate continues to warm. The country’s changing weather patterns mean the UK now experiences a “notably different” climate to what it was just a few decades ago, its State of the UK Climate report published on 14
July says.
According to this latest assessment, we now have many more very hot days (the last only a few days ago) and many fewer extremely cold nights. It shows just how much global warming caused by the vast emissions of greenhouse gases is reshaping our
climate. Climate change is also bringing more severe weather events like storms and flooding and inevitably the country’s changing climate is having an impact on the natural world, with some species suffering.
The report focuses on 2024, when the UK experienced its second-warmest February, warmest May, warmest spring, fifth-warmest December, and fifth-warmest winter since records began in 1884. In the UK the last three years have been the five warmest on record, with 2024 the fourth warmest year in records dating back to 1884. The report highlights that some of these records have already been surpassed in 2025 – more evidence of this trend towards more extreme weather.
Rainfall patterns fluctuate much more than temperature, the Met Office says, but it finds that, as well as warming up, the UK is also getting wetter, with rainfall increasing significantly during the winter. Between October and March, rainfall in 2015-2024 was 16% higher than in 1961–1990, it says.
As in recent years, floods and storms caused the worst severe weather damage to the UK last year. A series of named storms that hit the UK beginning in the autumn of 2023 helped cause widespread flooding in early January. That contributed to the wettest winter
half year – October 2023 to March 2024 – in over 250 years.
Behind all these changes are the relentless rise in average temperatures driven by climate change, the Met Office says. Global temperatures have risen by over 1.3C since the industrial revolution as humans continue to release carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate.
The Met Office calculates that the UK is warming at a rate of around 0.25C per decade, with the 2015-2024 period 1.24C warmer than the period between 1961-1990.
The report is based on observations from a network of several hundred weather stations, with temperature and rainfall data from these extending back to the 19th century providing long term context. These data tell us how our climate has already changed here in the UK.
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