Last month hottest June on record in England, Met Office figures suggest

Independent

5 hours ago

Last month was the warmest June on record in England and the second warmest for the UK since Met Office data began in 1884.
Provisional June figures released by the agency on Tuesday indicate the mean average temperature for England across the month was 16.9C, beating the previous record of 16.7C set in 2023.
For the UK as a whole, the mean temperature was 15.2C, just behind 15.8C set in 2023.
Meanwhile, Wales saw its third warmest June, behind 2023 and 2018.
It comes as Tuesday was confirmed as the hottest day of the year so far, with a temperature of 33.6C recorded in Frittenden, Kent.
The Met Office said temperatures are 'very likely' to climb even higher in the South East during the afternoon, with forecasters saying temperatures could reach 34C to 35C in London before cooler conditions sweep in from the north.
The hot weather marks the second heat wave for parts of the UK within the last month, with scientists warning the high temperatures were made more likely because of human-caused climate change.
In terms of rainfall, the Met Office figures show the UK saw an average of 79.5mm in June overall, 3% above the long-term average for the month.
But there were clear regional differences in the amount of rain experienced.
While Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all saw at least 20% more rainfall than average, England received 80% of the average.
There was also a north-south split within England, with northern areas seeing 98% of the long-term average but southern parts experiencing 68%.
The country saw one of the driest springs on record, prompting drought status to be declared recently in the North West and Yorkshire.
Sunshine levels were above average across the UK – at 112% – although no national records were broken, while England was particularly sunny seeing 124% of the average, according to the Met Office.
Extreme heat is becoming more frequent and intense because of climate change, and experts say the health impacts of heat are severely underestimated.
They warn that the UK is unprepared for the rising risk of extremely hot conditions that climate change is bringing – especially earlier in the summer, when people are less acclimatised to coping with it.
Dr Amy Doherty, Met Office climate scientist, said: 'While we've not conducted formal climate attribution studies into June 2025's two heat waves, past studies have shown it is virtually certain that human influence has increased the occurrence and intensity of extreme heat events such as this.
'Numerous climate attribution studies have shown that human influence increased the chance that specific extreme heat events would occur, such as the summer of 2018 and July 2022.
'Our Met Office climate projections indicate that hot spells will become more frequent in our future climate, particularly over the south-east of the UK.
'Temperatures are projected to rise in all seasons, but the heat would be most intense in summer.'
A rapid study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) research group found the searing temperatures earlier in June were made 100 times more likely because of human-caused climate change, while the heat wave that gripped south-east England was 10 times likelier.
Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, research fellow at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said: 'Heat waves are silent killers.
'Unlike floods or storms, their impact can be invisible: people who die during extreme heat usually have pre-existing health conditions, and heat is rarely recorded as a contributing cause of death.'