Climate extremes became increasingly 'normal' in Britain in past five years — weather agency

LONDON — Britain's four most recent years are all among its five warmest on record, according to the country's Meteorological Office, which said Wednesday that rising temperatures are making once-exceptional weather conditions increasingly ordinary.

The Met Office's annual climate report found that 2025 was Britain's warmest year since records began in 1884, while the latest decade was 1.33 degrees Celsius (34.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the 1961–1990 average.

The report stated that the average hottest day of the year had warmed by more than 4.5 degrees Celsius (40.1 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of southeast England compared with the 1961–1990 period, while the number of days above 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) had more than quadrupled in London.

"What we used to think of as extreme, we increasingly consider as normal," said Mike Kendon, the Met Office's lead author of the State of the UK Climate report.

The findings come after a succession of heat waves across Britain and Europe this year that have shattered temperature records, fueled wildfires, and led to thousands of so-called excess deaths.

UK Records Expected to Be Broken Again

Britain's Met Office said annual temperatures have risen by around 0.25 degrees Celsius (32.5 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade since the 1980s, making 2025 the sixth time this century that Britain's annual temperature record has been broken.

The agency said it expects records to be broken again within years, and Kendon said the evidence shows that the climate of the last century is no more.

"We are right now living in a time of historic and unprecedented change," he said.

During Britain's May and June heat waves, around 2,700 people were estimated to have died from heat-related causes, with global warming making the heat severe enough to contribute to about 42% of those deaths.

-Reporting by Sam Tabahriti; editing by Sarah Young/Reuters