It’s not just Spain and the Balearics where summer are getting hotter, the UK is also posting record temperatures. Following the hottest summer in Spain since records began in 1961, surpassing that of 2022, which was the hottest until now, the United Kingdom is on track to have 2025 as its hottest year on record, surpassing even 2022, according to a forecast released on Tuesday by the British Meteorological Office (Met Office).
So far, the average annual temperature stands at 10.05 degrees Celsius, above the previous record of 10.03 Celsius set in 2022, according to the Met Office. The mild weather the country is experiencing before Christmas, which is above normal for this time of year, means that the final temperature cannot yet be confirmed. The 10 warmest years since records began in 1884 have all occurred in the last two decades.
The new record predicted for 2025 is based on the persistent heat during the spring and summer, which were the warmest ever recorded in the UK. Mike Kendon, a scientist at the Met Office, said that ‘at this point, it seems more likely that 2025 will be confirmed as the warmest year on record in the UK. We are living in extraordinary times. The changes we are seeing are unprecedented in the observational records dating back to the 19th century,’ he added.
For Bob Ward, director of policy and communications at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics (LSE), these temperatures are ‘further evidence of the impacts of climate change in the UK and the urgent need to slow global warming by leading the world towards greenhouse gas neutrality as soon as possible’.
The summer of 2025 was the warmest on record in Spain since 1961, with an average temperature on the mainland of 24.2 degrees, i.e. 2.1 degrees above normal. This exceeds the previous record, set in 2022, by one tenth of a degree and is six tenths of a degree above the ‘historic summer of 2003’, which until then was the benchmark for extreme heat in Europe.
The Aemet met. office spokesperson emphasised that climate analyses confirm a ‘clear trend’ towards heat waves: Nine of the ten warmest summers in Spain have occurred in the 21st century, and in the last decade, three of the last summers have been among the warmest: 2022 was the second warmest, 2023 the fourth and 2024 the seventh.