The Met Office has issued an update indicating an increased likelihood of prolonged heatwaves across June, July, and August this year. This follows record-breaking temperatures at the end of May, when a high of 35.1C was recorded at Kew Gardens in London, surpassing a national May record set in 1944.
According to the Met Office's three-month outlook, large-scale climate patterns point to a strong signal for hotter-than-average conditions. Forecasters state there is an "increased chance of heatwaves and heat-related impacts", with temperatures expected to trend consistently above seasonal norms. However, they caution that long-range forecasts indicate probabilities, not certainties, and variability remains a key aspect of UK weather.
MeteoGroup, which supplies data to BBC Weather, has aligned with this assessment, predicting "significant bursts" of heat across the UK and continental Europe. A Met Office spokesperson noted that "hotter summers are now twice as likely compared to the 1991–2020 average", attributing the shift to climate change. "The shift in likelihood towards hot conditions is consistent with the long-term trend of rising UK temperatures linked to global climate change," they added.
While temperature projections carry high confidence, rainfall forecasts remain divided, raising concerns about potential water shortages. Deficits from a dry spring have already left regions of southern and eastern England on unstable footing. Counties including Essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, and Dorset received as little as 25% of their average seasonal rainfall, pushing river levels to "notably" or "exceptionally low" marks.
Infrastructure strain was evident during the late-May heatwave, with Thames Water reporting a consumption surge of an additional one billion litres of water compared to the same period last year. This spike triggered supply disruptions for approximately 18,000 homes across the South East. Utility sectors and healthcare providers are using these long-range models to guide contingency planning.
