The UK appears to be on the verge of a hotter than usual summer – with the Met Office warning there’s an increased risk of heatwaves in the coming months.
The weather service’s three-month outlook predicts it is 2.3 times more likely than normal that it will be hot in the UK between 1 June and 31 August.
The average temperatures during those months range from 10-17C, with the southeast of England experiencing the higher averages of 16-17C.
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The predictions come after temperatures soared to 8C (46F) above the average for this time of year on Saturday, bringing the final day of meteorological spring to a warm close.
This has been the UK’s sunniest spring on record, with some 630 hours of sunshine logged between 1 March and 27 May.
It has also been the driest spring in more than a century.
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The Met Office said: “While the current three-month outlook shows an increased chance of a hot summer, the temperature signals for this summer are similar to those for recent years and consistent with our warming climate.
“The increased chance of hotter than average temperatures is not a guarantee of prolonged hot weather or heatwaves, but it does mean that heatwave conditions could be reached at times.
“However, it’s important to bear in mind that an increased chance of hot conditions could also reflect a mix of hot and cool days, warm nights, or less extreme levels of warmth rather than continual heatwave conditions specifically.”
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The Met Office’s long-range forecast does not offer weather predictions for specific days, but instead gives an indication of possible temperatures, rainfall and wind speed over the period as a whole.
The summers of 2018 and 2021 to 2023 were also predicted to be hot. Data shows the last time a summer was predicted to be cool was in 2015.
