United Kingdom Climate – Sep 2026September 2026 Update
The United Kingdom has capped its warmest July-September period on record, driven by sustained summer heat that stretched late into the season.
Coverage: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland
Summary
The United Kingdom has capped its warmest July-September period on record, driven by sustained summer heat that stretched late into the season. The three-month mean temperature reached 16.17°C, standing 2.6°C above the long-term baseline. That late-season persistence culminated in the nation's 4th warmest September since records began in 1899, with unseasonably high temperatures capping off months of remarkable sunshine. Looking ahead, unsettled conditions are expected to become more frequent over the coming weeks, though milder spells may linger in the south.
This month in numbers
In September 2026, the United Kingdom recorded an average mean temperature of 14.6°C, placing it 2.4°C above the historic baseline and ranking as the 4th warmest on record for the month. Zero frost days were observed, tying for 1st lowest on record and meaning households avoided cold mornings scraping ice off the car. The month completed an extraordinary three-month spell: the July-September mean temperature of 16.17°C set a new record as the 1st warmest such period in 127 years of data, while 568 hours of sunshine made it the 4th sunniest period ever documented.
What changed
The record heat over the latest three months built upon a remarkably warm summer, extending a warming trend that saw 2025 rank as the nation's 1st warmest year on record at 10.06°C. Across the wider European continent, where regional climate trends are detailed at Europe, conditions averaged 2.45°C above baseline for the three-month window. Globally, land temperatures for the three months through September ranked as the 3rd warmest on record, showing how local heat matched a broader planetary pattern.
What’s driving change?
The persistent warmth reflects broader atmospheric mechanisms, including that repeatedly allowed warm air masses to settle over western Europe. Because , terrestrial regions across the UK experience accelerated warming during high-pressure spells. These dynamics were accompanied by a positive Arctic Oscillation, which helped maintain mild conditions across northern Europe, while 25 wildfires in Australia and 24 in Brazil illustrated severe heat impacts elsewhere, tracked on our live map at Extreme Weather tracker.
Looking ahead
Over the coming weeks and months, seasonal outlooks indicate a shift toward more unsettled Atlantic weather patterns, though temperatures across southern areas are expected to remain slightly above seasonal averages.
Precipitation, Sunshine, Frost and Snow are converted to standard deviations from their own average so they can share an axis with Temperature anomalies.
Metric
Insight
Temperature
10-Yr AverageActual Year
Climate History
51 of 51 events
1400-1814Pattern Shift
The Thames frost fairs end (Little Ice Age)
The Thames froze solid at London at least 24 times between 1400 and 1814, giving rise to 'frost fairs' on the ice (1608, 1683-84, 1716, 1739-40, 1789, 1814) during the 'Little Ice Age' (~14th century to ~1850). It has never frozen solid enough for a fair since.
Britain's deadliest recorded flood drowns both shores of the Bristol Channel on 30 January 1607, killing an estimated 500-2,000 people and inundating about 200 square miles of farmland up to 14 miles inland - the Somerset Levels in England and the Gwent Levels in south Wales alike.
Scotland's lowest-ever recorded temperature, -27.2°C, has occurred three times: Braemar (1895 and 1982) and Altnaharra (1995). More recently, Braemar hit -23°C in February 2021 - the lowest UK February temperature since 1955.
After the Second World War, coal and oil use grew rapidly across Europe, North America and the Soviet Union. Global sulphur dioxide emissions rose from about 30 to about 130 million tonnes a year by 1980, and the sulphate haze they formed masked part of the greenhouse warming underneath - the effect known as 'global dimming'.
A temperature inversion traps coal smoke over London from 5 to 9 December 1952. Sulphur dioxide from domestic fires and industry turns to sulphuric acid in the fog; initial estimates put the death toll near 4,000, and modern work puts it closer to 12,000. It led directly to the Clean Air Act of 1956.
On the night of 15-16 August 1952, around 90 million tons of rain falls on an already saturated Exmoor. The East and West Lyn rivers tear through Lynmouth in north Devon carrying boulders and debris, destroying over 100 buildings and killing 34 people.
Severe thunderstorms over southern England on 18 July 1955 drop 279.4mm of rain on Martinstown in Dorset in a single day - still the highest daily rainfall ever recorded anywhere in the United Kingdom.
The first major clean-air legislation in Great Britain, passed after London's Great Smog of December 1952 killed around 12,000 people. It created smoke control areas and cut domestic coal burning, beginning the long decline in UK and European aerosol emissions. It did not extend to Northern Ireland.
Charles David Keeling begins continuous measurements of atmospheric CO₂ at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, starting at about 315 ppm. The record has risen every year since and is now the longest unbroken direct measurement of CO₂ anywhere - the 'Keeling Curve'.
The winter of 1962-63 freezes Britain from late December to early March - rivers, lakes and even stretches of sea ice over, and it is the coldest winter since at least 1895 in every UK meteorological district. In Central England, where the record runs back to 1659, only 1683-84 and 1739-40 have been colder, and January 1963 at -2.1°C remains the coldest month there since January 1814.
Hurricane-force winds gusting to 130mph cross Glasgow and central Scotland overnight on 14-15 January 1968, killing 20 people. Over 300 Glasgow houses are destroyed and 70,000 damaged - half the city's council stock - with damage across Scotland put at £30 million at 1968 prices. It is still described as Scotland's worst natural disaster in living memory.
The driest 16 months in over 200 years across the UK, running from May 1975 to August 1976 and ending in an extraordinary heatwave: temperatures reached at least 32.2°C somewhere in Britain on 15 consecutive days from 23 June to 7 July, peaking at 35.9°C at Cheltenham on 3 July. No heatwave before or since has managed more than five such days in a row. Standpipes appeared in the streets and a Drought Act was rushed through Parliament.
Global sulphur dioxide emissions peak at about 130 million tonnes a year, then begin a long decline as Europe, North America and Japan clean up their air. As the aerosol mask thins, the rate of global warming picks up through the 1980s.
On 23 November 1981, 104 confirmed tornadoes touch down across England and Wales in a single day - the largest tornado outbreak ever recorded in Europe. The worst damage is in Leicester, where hundreds of homes are hit and 24 people are injured as part of a school collapses.
Built in direct response to the 1953 flood, the Thames Barrier's ten steel gates begin protecting 125 square kilometres of central London in 1982. It has closed over 200 times in its first forty years - nine successive tides in 2003 alone - and the rising closure rate is one of the clearest local measures of sea-level rise.
A sulphur-rich eruption in Mexico whose aerosol cloud stayed in the stratosphere for more than two years, cooling the Northern Hemisphere by about 0.2°C.
British Antarctic Survey scientists Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jon Shanklin publish their Halley and Faraday measurements on 16 May 1985, showing October ozone over Antarctica had fallen to about two-thirds of earlier decades. The cause is traced to chlorofluorocarbons, and the finding triggers the fastest international environmental response on record.
A gust of 173mph (150.3 knots) is recorded at Cairn Gorm summit on 20 March 1986 - the strongest wind ever measured in the United Kingdom. The low-level record followed three years later: 142mph at Fraserburgh in Aberdeenshire on 13 February 1989.
Signed in 1987 to phase out ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons, the Montreal Protocol turned out to be one of the most consequential climate treaties ever agreed. CFCs are potent greenhouse gases in their own right, and NOAA estimates the Protocol prevented up to 2°C of warming by 2100 - around 1°C from the emissions avoided, and up to 1°C more by sparing forests and other carbon sinks from increased ultraviolet radiation.
An unforecast hurricane-force windstorm on the night of 15-16 October 1987 killed 18 people in England and felled an estimated 15 million trees - the UK's most famous modern storm, remembered partly for the Met Office forecaster who, hours earlier, told a viewer not to worry about a hurricane.
Atmospheric CO₂ passes 350 ppm. In the same year James Hansen told a US Senate committee that global warming was already detectable, the moment it entered mainstream politics. Twenty years later, in 2008, Hansen proposed 350 ppm as the safe upper limit - a level the world had already left behind.
Daytime warming catches up with the night-led pattern
Across 1961-90, 81% of the world's land saw nights warming faster than days. Across 1991-2020 the pattern reversed: 70% saw days warming faster, as the industrial haze that had been dimming daytime sunshine was cleaned up. The study compares two fixed thirty-year windows; measured as a turning point, this site's own global series turns around 1982.
An intense depression crosses southern Scotland on 25 January 1990, driving severe gales across England and Wales in broad daylight. 47 people are killed - more than twice the toll of the Great Storm of 1987 - around 3 million trees come down and 500,000 people lose power. Damage was heaviest south of a line from west Wales to Suffolk.
A strongly positive North Atlantic Oscillation phase dominates the 1990s - milder, wetter, stormier UK/NW European winters - one of the most cited decadal NAO trends in the observational record.
Gale-force winds meet a high spring tide on 26 February 1990 and breach the sea wall at Towyn on the north Wales coast. Ten square kilometres flood, 2,800 properties are affected and around 6,000 people are evacuated - one of the largest peacetime evacuations in Wales.
Widely regarded as the most powerful storm to hit the UK in reliable records, the New Year's Day storm of 1992 strikes Scotland hardest and the Northern Isles hardest of all. Shetland takes widespread structural damage and two people are killed.
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flips to a warm phase
The Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation flipped to a warm phase in 1995. For the UK it is one of the background rhythms sitting underneath the warming trend: warm AMO phases are associated with warmer North Atlantic surface waters on the UK's doorstep, and have been linked to wetter summers in parts of north-west Europe. It is a natural cycle of roughly 60-70 years, so it shifts the baseline rather than driving the long-term trend - which matters when reading any UK record set since the mid-1990s.
The wettest autumn in England and Wales since records began in 1766. 2000 ends as the wettest year on record across much of England and Wales, the Ouse at York rises 5.3m above its normal summer level - the worst flooding there in 400 years - and around 10,000 properties flood nationwide.
The August 2003 European heatwave brings the UK's first 38.5°C reading, at Brogdale near Faversham in Kent on the 10th, and around 2,193 excess deaths across the UK between 4 and 13 August.
About 185mm of rain falls on the hills above Boscastle in Cornwall on 16 August 2004 - some 75mm of it in two hours, a whole August's worth. River levels rise two metres in an hour and tear through the village. No one is killed, but the flood becomes Britain's textbook flash-flood case study.
Flooding from 1 June to 28 July 2007 kills 13 people, floods more than 55,000 homes and businesses and causes about £6.5 billion of damage. England and Wales record 414.1mm of rain from May to July, their wettest such spell since the series began in 1766. Northern Ireland and Scotland are hit first on 14 June, Yorkshire and the Midlands from 15 June, and Gloucestershire, Worcestershire and South Wales in late July.
A run of strongly negative NAO winters between 2009 and 2013 - high pressure parked over Greenland blocking the Atlantic westerlies and letting Arctic air spill south. Winter 2009-10 was the UK's coldest since 1978-79 at 1.5°C, and December 2010, at a UK mean of -1°C, was the coldest December since Met Office records began, beating the 0.1°C of December 1981.
Globally, heatwave days have roughly doubled each decade since 2010 - from an average of 5.3 a year in the 2000s to 11.5 in the 2010s and 18.9 so far in the 2020s, weighted by land area across 169 countries. El Niño has not become more extreme. The whole temperature distribution has shifted upwards, so the same natural El Niño and La Niña cycle now pushes far more days over fixed extreme-heat thresholds.
Start of the sustained rise in UK heatwave frequency
UK warm spells more than doubled in average length from 5.3 days (1961-90) to over 13 days (2008-2017), part of a sustained increase that continued through the record-breaking summers of 2018, 2019, 2022 and 2023.
Atmospheric CO₂ passes 400 ppm at Mauna Loa on 9 May 2013 - a level the planet had not seen for 3-5 million years, since the Pliocene, when sea levels were many metres higher.
7 of the UK's 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 2013 (the start of the Post-Hiatus Acceleration era) - Met Office's own 2025 climate summary independently confirms 2025 as the UK's warmest year since its 1884 record began, with the last four years all among its five warmest ever.
About 100 million m³ of floodwater covered 65 km² of the Somerset Levels through the winter of 2013-14 - the largest flood event on record there, with some communities cut off for weeks. Worst affected: Somerset, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall in the south west, and the Thames Valley in the south east.
A relentless run of Atlantic storms batters the south-west coast through the winter of 2013-14. Waves overtop defences across Cornwall, Devon and Dorset, over 7,000 homes and businesses flood, and on 4-5 February the sea tears away the main railway line at Dawlish, cutting Cornwall and much of Devon off by rail for two months.
Winter 2013-14 (December to February) brought the UK 540mm of rain, 178% of the 1961-90 average - its wettest winter since this site's Met Office regional record begins in 1901. England and Wales, in their much longer series, had their wettest winter since 1766.
Storm Eva drops a month's rain in a day onto ground already saturated by Storm Desmond three weeks earlier. On 26 December 2015 around 4,000 homes and 2,000 businesses flood across northern England - 2,200 homes in Greater Manchester alone - with parts of Leeds, Calderdale and York under up to 1.8m of water.
New UK all-time records for 24-hour rainfall (341.1mm at Honister, Cumbria) and 48-hour rainfall (405mm at Thirlmere, Cumbria). Over 5,200 properties flooded across Cumbria and Lancashire; worst-hit towns include Carlisle, Kendal, Keswick, Cockermouth.
Globally, the eleven warmest years on record have all happened since 2015. The UK's own record is a looser fit - six of its eleven warmest fall in that span, with 2014, 2011, 2007, 2006 and 2003 outside it. Its warmest year is 2025.
A Siberian cold snap (22 February - 5 March 2018), compounded by Storm Emma, brought the UK's heaviest widespread snow in years - 57cm in Gloucestershire, -14.2°C at Faversham, Kent, and 17 UK deaths. It followed a sudden stratospheric warming in mid-February that split the polar vortex and sent Siberian air west across Europe.
Global fossil CO₂ emissions fell about 5.8% in 2020, from 37.0 to 34.8 billion tonnes, yet atmospheric CO₂ still rose 2.5 ppm - the dip barely registers in the atmospheric record. Emissions were back to pre-pandemic levels by 2022.
New international shipping rules cut the sulphur allowed in ship fuel from 3.5% to 0.5% almost overnight, removing about 8 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide a year. With less sulphate haze over the oceans, it may have added around 0.1°C of warming by 2023-24.
Thunderstorms sweep eastern Scotland on 11-12 August 2020, flooding Aberdeenshire, Falkirk, Fife and Perth. A landslip triggered by the rainfall derails a train near Stonehaven, killing three people - the first passenger fatalities in a UK derailment since 2007.
February 2020 was the UK's wettest February in records from 1862 - the wettest for England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the second wettest for Scotland - as Storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge followed one another in on a strong, southward-shifted jet stream and a strongly positive North Atlantic Oscillation. NOAA's Arctic Oscillation index for the month, +3.42, was the highest for any February since its record began in 1950.
The UK passes 40°C for the first time on 19 July 2022, reaching 40.3°C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. Forty-six stations beat the previous UK record of 38.7°C and seven of them topped 40°C. Wales and Scotland set new national records in the same spell, and Northern Ireland came within 0.1°C of its own.
Storm Éowyn sets the highest wind gust ever recorded on the island of Ireland on 24 January 2025 - 114mph at Mace Head, County Galway - with gusts over 90mph in Northern Ireland. Around 100,000 Northern Irish properties lose power, alongside 725,000 in the Republic.
United Kingdom has a temperate climate (Köppen Cfb: Oceanic / temperate), with distinct warm summers and cool-to-cold winters. July is typically the warmest month, averaging 15.8°C, while January is the coldest at 3.9°C. Annual precipitation averages around 1168mm (about 20mm of it as snow), spread fairly evenly across the year.
Warmest month
Jul 16°C
Coldest month
Jan 4°C
Annual rainfall
1148mm
Wettest month
Dec 133mm
Annual snowfall
20mmwater-equiv.
Snowiest month
Jan 6mm
RainSnow (water-equivalent)
Monthly climate normals (2016–2025) - bar colour and height show average temperature, the shaded area shows average monthly rain, with snow (water-equivalent) shown separately.
How spring and autumn have shifted in United Kingdom. Spring is defined as the date monthly temperatures first rise above the long-term annual mean (8.1°C, from 1900–1929); autumn is the date they fall back below it. Temperature swings 11.0°C peak-to-peak across the year - a classic four-seasons rhythm.
Shifting summer
27 days Longer
Warm Season
1900–1929 Baseline: 1 May → 21 Oct · 174 days
2016–2025 Now: 17 Apr → 3 Nov · 200 days
JanJFebFMarMAprAMayMJunJJulJAugASepSOctONovNDecD
Spr 13 days EarlierAut 13 days Later
baseline yr·recent yr·ring = global temp anomaly
1900–19292016–20251900–1929 annual mean
Baseline vs recent monthly temperature climatology. Biggest warming: Jun (+1.9°C).
Live GDACS alerts in the United Kingdom - Red (Major), Orange (Severe) or Green (Moderate) - and the long-term record of weather and climate disasters.
Live Alerts
Loading…
Alerts, Last 12 Months
Major
0
None since 2021
Severe
0
None since 2021
Moderate
4
Weather Disasters in 2024 - Latest Complete Year
Disasters
2
2.4 a year, 2015-2024
Deaths
578
946 a year, 2015-2024
Weather Disasters, 2015-2024
Most Frequent
Storms & Cyclones
11 of 24 disasters
Deadliest
Extreme Temperature
9,435 of 9,457 deaths
Disasters: EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, via Our World in Data - 10+ deaths, 100+ people affected, or a declared emergency or call for international help. Alerts: GDACS.
The natural climate patterns that measurably shape seasonal temperature or rainfall in the United Kingdom, from this site’s own data since 1950 - long-term trends removed, and ENSO’s share taken out before scoring the others, so each is credited only for what it adds.
Arctic Oscillation (AO)strong link
How readily Arctic air spills south - tied to the polar vortex.
Now: positive · +1.05(30-day mean to 2026-10-13)
Strongest in Dec-Feb temperature: a positive AO tends to bring warmer conditions here, a negative AO the reverse (about 45% of year-to-year variation). Also Jun-Aug rainfall (positive AO: drier).
Steers the North Atlantic storm track - Europe's winters especially.
Now: positive · +0.37(30-day mean to 2026-10-13)
Strongest in Dec-Feb temperature: a positive NAO tends to bring warmer conditions here, a negative NAO the reverse (about 38% of year-to-year variation). Also Jun-Aug rainfall (positive NAO: drier).
Every figure on this page is sourced from official, openly published climate datasets. Anomalies are calculated against the 1961–1990 baseline (temperature) and 1991–2020 (rainfall, sunshine, frost) - see the Methodology & Sources page for the complete dataset list and update calendar.
How is the climate in the United Kingdom changing?
The United Kingdom is warming in line with the rest of the world. The page above shows the latest monthly temperature anomaly versus the 1961-1990 baseline, the long-term annual trend, and the region's rank in the historical record. The headline panel also shows the long-term trend rate per decade and the warmest and coolest years on file.
What is the climate like in the United Kingdom?
The United Kingdom has a temperate climate (Köppen Cfb: Oceanic / temperate), with distinct warm summers and cool-to-cold winters. July is typically the warmest month, averaging 15.8°C, while January is the coldest at 3.9°C. Annual precipitation averages around 1168mm (about 20mm of it as snow), spread fairly evenly across the year.
Which climate drivers affect the weather in the United Kingdom?
Measured from seasonal temperature and rainfall in the United Kingdom since 1950, with the long-term warming trend removed (and ENSO's own share removed before scoring the other drivers), the climate drivers with a clear effect here are: the Arctic Oscillation (AO) - strong, strongest in Dec-Feb temperature, which a positive AO tends to make warmer here (a negative AO the reverse), about 45% of year-to-year variation; the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) - strong, strongest in Dec-Feb temperature, which a positive NAO tends to make warmer here (a negative NAO the reverse), about 38% of year-to-year variation. Their current state is shown in the Climate Drivers section of this page.
What extreme weather affects the United Kingdom?
In 2024, the latest complete year, the international disaster database EM-DAT recorded 2 weather and climate disasters in the United Kingdom, against an average of 2.4 a year in 2015-2024, with 578 deaths. Over those ten years the most frequent type was storms & cyclones (11 of 24) and the deadliest extreme temperature. GDACS, the UN and European Commission's disaster alert system, issued 0 Major (Red) and 0 Severe (Orange) alerts for the United Kingdom in the last 12 months. Live alerts are on this page and on the Extreme Weather tracker.
Where does the climate data for the United Kingdom come from?
Climate data for the United Kingdom comes from the UK Met Office HadUK-Grid (temperature, rainfall, sunshine, air frost), Our World in Data, sourcing Copernicus ERA5 and HadCRUT5 (national temperature anomaly) and the Global Carbon Project via Our World in Data (CO₂ emissions), refreshed every month, when the upstream temperature and rainfall data are refreshed.
What is the climate baseline used on this page?
Anomalies on this page are calculated against the 1961-1990 climatological baseline, which is the standard reference period used by the Met Office, NOAA, IPCC and most national climate services. Some panels also show the source-native 1901-2000 (NOAA) or 1991-2020 (WMO) baselines for verification. See Methodology & Sources for the full reference.
Which areas does the United Kingdom climate data cover?
The United Kingdom climate profile covers England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and surrounding areas. Temperature, rainfall, sunshine & frost data since 1884
How often is the United Kingdom climate update refreshed?
The United Kingdom climate update is refreshed monthly, typically a few days after the previous month closes and the upstream provider (Met Office HadUK-Grid, NOAA Climate at a Glance, Copernicus ERA5 or the Global Carbon Project) publishes its update. See the Climate Rankings for cross-region comparisons.
What counts as a Heatwave Day on the United Kingdom climate page?
Heatwave Days use the Warm Spell Duration Index (WSDI) - the WMO/ETCCDI-standard heatwave measure: days that are part of a run of 6 or more consecutive days above the local 90th-percentile temperature for that calendar day. The 90th-percentile threshold varies by time of year (a hot day in January is judged differently to one in July) but is fixed to the 1961-1990 baseline for every year shown - it does not shift as the climate warms, which is why Heatwave Days trend upward over time.
Does the United Kingdom climate page include frost and snow data?
Yes. Frost Days (days with a minimum temperature below 0°C, World Bank CCKP) and snow water-equivalent (GPCC) are shown alongside temperature and precipitation, each measured against the 1961-1990 baseline where a like-for-like historical comparison is available.
What major climate events has the United Kingdom experienced?
Major climate events in the United Kingdom include The Thames frost fairs end (Little Ice Age) (1400-1814); The UK's wettest day on record (1955); The 1981 tornado outbreak; August 1990 UK heatwave breaks 79-year record; August 2003 European heatwave (UK); UK's post-2013 warmth acceleration; Storm Desmond, December 2015; Storm Éowyn (2025). The Climate History panel on this page lists 51 sourced events and pattern shifts relevant to the United Kingdom, the earliest from 1400 - 36 about the United Kingdom itself and the rest global context such as volcanic eruptions and El Niño events. Each entry carries its own sources and can be searched, filtered to local events or by category, and sorted by date; scrolling the list moves a cursor across the chart above so you can see where each event falls in the record.
Where does the Climate History list for the United Kingdom come from, and how is it checked?
It is a hand-reviewed register, not an automatic feed. Every entry is sourced, and each one records how it was verified - against this site's own data series, against a peer-reviewed paper, or against the public record of the event. 3 of the 51 entries here are written specifically about the United Kingdom, usually quoting its own ranking or measured figures. The rest give global or national context shared with wider pages. Where a figure is narrower than it first appears, or a famous claim does not hold locally, the entry says so.
Are nights warming faster than days in the United Kingdom?
The Long-Term Trends chart has a Day/Night toggle showing Day Highs and Night Lows anchored around the average trend, so they always bracket it rather than both drifting to one side. Across most of the world, nights warmed faster than days from the 1960s to the late 1980s (air pollution dimming daytime sun), and days have generally been catching back up since, as skies cleared. Toggle Day/Night on the chart above to see which pattern the United Kingdom follows.
We use cookies for ads, social features and analytics, and share how you use the site with our advertising, social media and analytics partners. Privacy Policy
