The UK's climatic extremes are increasingly becoming the norm, according to the annual State of the UK Climate report, which found that 2025 was the hottest year on record and further unprecedented changes are likely to break records again soon. Data stretching back to 1884 shows the UK has never experienced a year as hot as 2025, with temperatures driven higher by carbon pollution in the atmosphere.
Record-Breaking Temperatures and Trends
The country experienced its warmest spring and summer on record last year, while England saw its driest spring in a century. The report, published in the International Journal of Climatology, found that the last four years in the UK were among the top five hottest on record. Higher average temperatures from climate breakdown are making dangerous extremes hotter.
In an area from Kent to Lincolnshire, the average hottest day of the year was 4.5°C (8.1°F) warmer in the last decade than in 1961-1990. In Greater London, the number of days over 30°C and nights over 18°C more than quadrupled over the same period. Colder northern parts of the country are now experiencing temperatures that London had decades ago.
Unprecedented Changes and Expert Commentary
Mike Kendon, a scientist at the National Climate Information Centre and lead author of the report, said: “What we used to think of as extreme, we increasingly consider as normal. We are seeing unprecedented changes continuing … and every year adds to this body of evidence.” He added: “Our climate is on the move – literally. The trend shows that in the 1980s, annual average temperatures of 11°C were virtually unknown in the UK, yet by 2025 almost a fifth of the land surface reached that value.”
The report comes as the UK faces its third deadly heatwave in two months. On Tuesday, the Met Office said the UK had already recorded as many 30°C (86°F) days in 2026 as in the extraordinarily hot year of 1976.
Increased Rainfall and Flood Risks
Warm air can hold about 7% more moisture for each degree Celsius of warming, leading to heavier rainfall and increased flood risk. The report found that the number of very wettest days has risen by more than 20% since the 1961-1990 period, while rainfall intensity has risen by 5%.
While the UK's climate is becoming wetter overall, punishing droughts amid hot and dry summers are expected to worsen as average temperatures increase. In spring 2025, most of England and Wales received less than half of the average rainfall for the same period in 1991-2020. England's river flow from March to August 2025 was the second lowest on record in a dataset going back to 1961.
Impacts on Infrastructure and Health
Liz Bentley, head of the Royal Meteorological Society, said: “The way we experience climate change most is through the weather extremes. Climate change has been described by scientists for many years but is now increasingly being felt by the UK population in their own homes and communities.”
Persistent hot and dry weather has created conditions for wildfires to spread. Fire services have struggled to contain blazes as experts warned the country was in the grip of a “firewave”. The third heatwave of the year, forecast to reach 33°C on Wednesday, has been longer but milder than the one in late June, which overwhelmed hospitals, disrupted travel, and forced schools to close. A separate analysis found that the May and June heatwaves killed about 2,700 people in England and Wales.
Kendon concluded: “A lot of our infrastructure, housing stock, agriculture and health systems are based on a climate that is no longer represented by recent observations. A final point, if you find this sobering enough, is these changes are set to continue. We’re not saying that where we are now is where we’re going to stay.”
