EXTREME weather is becoming commonplace in the UK with records more frequent, a major new climate report has said following the latest heatwave.
Scotland recorded its hottest day in two years on Saturday with temperatures hitting more than 32C in some areas.
A temperature of 32C in Scotland has only been recorded on six previous occasions since 1961.
The latest State of the UK Climate report, published by Wiley in the Royal Meteorological Society’s ‘International Journal of Climatology’, says the last three years have been in the UK’s top five warmest on record, with 2024 the fourth warmest year in records dating back to 1884.
In 2024 specifically, the UK recorded its second warmest February, warmest May, fifth warmest December, fifth warmest winter and warmest spring on record.
Statistics like this are typical of recent years in the UK’s climate records and some of these have already been surpassed in 2025, the report said.
Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the report Mike Kendon said the pace of change and clustering of records is "not natural".
Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the report, Mike Kendon, said: “Every year that goes by is another upward step on the warming trajectory our climate is on.
"Observations show that our climate in the UK is now notably different to what it was just a few decades ago. We are now seeing records being broken very frequently as we see temperature and rainfall extremes being the most affected by our changing climate.
“This pace of change and clustering of consecutive records is not a natural variation in our climate.
"Numerous studies have shown how human emissions of greenhouse gases are warming the atmosphere and changing the weather we experience on the ground.
"Our climate in the UK is now different to what it was just a few decades ago, this is clear from our observations.”
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.
Statistics show how the hottest days experienced in the UK have increased dramatically in just a few decades.
It says the number of days with temperatures 5°C above the 1961-1990 average has doubled for the most recent decade 2015-2024 compared to 1961-1990.
For 8°C above average the number has trebled and for 10°C it has quadrupled.
When comparing the most recent decade 2015-2024 to 1961-1990, the hottest summer days and coldest winter nights have warmed around twice as much as average summer days and winter nights have in some parts of the UK.
At the same time, the frequency of the coldest nights has also dropped dramatically.
Statistics also lay bare the extremes of rainfall in the last few decades. For the most recent decade 2015-2024, the number of months where counties are recording monthly rainfall totals of at least twice the 1991-2020 monthly average has increased by more than 50% compared to the number in 1961-1990.
Floods and storms brought the worst severe weather impacts to the UK in 2024.
There was widespread flooding in early January associated with the run of named storms from the autumn of 2023 including storms Babet, Ciarán, Debi, Elin, Fergus, Gerrit, Henk, Isha and Jocelyn.
October 2023 to March 2024 was the wettest winter half-year on record for England and Wales in over 250 years with areas affected by flooding including eastern Scotland, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands.
Met Office chief scientist, Professor Stephen Belcher, said: “We are experiencing more severe weather events in the UK due to climate change.
"They are a potent reminder of our responsibility to citizens now, and to future generations, to accelerate efforts to adapt our society and infrastructure to cope with these weather extremes.
"The climate is likely to continue to change, and so we need to prepare for the impacts that will have on the weather we experience on the ground.”
