UK on track for record-breaking warmest year
2025 is on track to be one of the hottest years on record in the UK, with 2022 and 2023 among the top three hottest years.
The average temperature for this year (to 21 December) is well ahead of the previous record set in 2022, but a colder period between Christmas and New Year could make this a close forecast, the Met Office said.
Four of the UK’s last five years will be among the five warmest in a series from 1884, and the forecaster warned this was “an indication of how rapidly our climate is changing”.
With a projected average temperature of 10.05°C, 2025 may surpass 2022 with an average temperature of 10.03°C. While 2023 followed with an average temperature of 9.97 degrees, 2014 and 2024 completed the first five years with temperatures of 9.88 degrees and 9.79 degrees, respectively.
The entire ten hottest years will have occurred in the last twenty years. If the record is confirmed, it would be the second year in the observation record that the UK’s average annual temperature has exceeded 10.0C.
Mike Kendon, senior scientist in the Met Office’s climate information team, said the record would come as no surprise given the UK’s annual temperature has risen by around 1.0C over the last four decades.
He said: “If confirmed at the end of the year, this would be the second annual temperature record recorded in the UK this decade, with the previous year being 2022. This should come as no surprise. We have seen annual temperatures rise by around 1.0C in the UK over the last four decades. “We will have to wait until the end of the year to confirm the final figure for 2025, but at this stage the odds of 2025 being confirmed as the hottest year on record for the UK look higher than ever.
“But it will not be long before this record is broken again. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, a new record for annual average temperature in the UK has been set at least six times – in 2002, 2003, 2006, 2014, 2022 and now in 2025 (if confirmed) – each record increasingly warmer than the last. We are living in extraordinary times for our climate. The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in the observational record going back to the nineteenth century.” “We are returning.”
2025 is already the sunniest year on record for the UK, according to provisional Met Office statistics. The UK recorded 1,622 hours of sunshine in the year to December 15, surpassing 2003 as the previous sunniest year in a series dating back to 1910.
The summer of 2025 was the hottest summer officially recorded for the UK, with the average temperature from 1 June to 31 August reaching 16.10C, 1.51C above the long-term meteorological average.
The Met Office has also predicted that 2026 will likely be another year of above 1.4C; The central forecast for next year’s forecast is currently 1.46C, lower than the 1.55C recorded in 2024.
Today:
The cloud continues and there are generally brighter breaks in the west. It’s dry for most, but drizzle is still possible. Towards the east and south the breeze rotates more and as a result it feels colder.
From Wednesday to Friday:
Cloud is moving into the Christmas period and sunnier weather is emerging. It’s largely dry, but it’s also getting colder, with significant windchill in England and Wales.
