The Met Office has announced that 2025 has been the hottest year in the United Kingdom recorded since the beginning.
Provisional data shows that 1622 hours of sunshine have been recorded, beating the previous record set back in 2003, reports BBC.
The record-breaking sunny year was boosted by an exceptional spring, which was not only the sunniest and warmest on record but also the driest in more than 50 years.
Looking at the data from four different United Nations, separately, only England has broken its record for the sunniest year, as 2025 is currently the second sunniest year in Scotland and the sixth sunniest in Wales.
Moreover, the most notably high sunshine regions in the UK, compared to average, were recorded in eastern England and northern Scotland.
Climate change is influencing UK’s weather in several ways, like higher temperatures, wetter winters, and drier summers.
The past few years have seen huge variability in the UK climate, with 2024 being the dullest year since 1998, followed by 2025, which will go down as the sunniest year on record.
The climate analysis in the UK showed that 2025’s summer was 70 times hotter than usual.
The temperature from 1 June to 31 August stands at 16.10°C, which is 1.51°C above the long-term meteorological average which surpasses the previous record of 15.76°C, set in 2018, and pushes the summer of 1976 out of the top five warmest summers in a series dating back to 1884.
The Met office said that “the persistent warmth this year has been driven by a combination of factors including the domination of high-pressure systems, unusually warm seas around the UK and the dry spring soils.”
“These conditions have created an environment where heat builds quickly and lingers, with both maximum and minimum temperatures considerably above average,” added Met office
Meteorologists explain the reason for massive sunshine is that high pressure has been a frequent feature of 2025’s major weather shift.
According to the Met Office, sunshine hours or hot hours are measured and recorded at nearly 300 observing sites across the UK by using two types of instruments; either a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder or a modern sunshine duration detector.
“Sunshine” is recorded when the strength of the sun is at least 120 watts per square metre. When passing clouds obscure the sun, the strength typically dips below this threshold.
Met Office scientist Dr. Emily Carlisle said, “Provisional Met Office statistics show that summer 2025 is officially the warmest on record with a mean temperature of 16.10°C, surpassing the previous record of 15.76°C set in 2018.”
Summer 2025 has seen four heatwaves, each relatively short-lived and interspersed with near-average conditions.
According to the UK Met Office, the recent years 2025, 2023, 2022, and 2018 all rank among the UK’s top ten warmest summers since records began in 1884.
As the new year 2026 is about to begin, there are signals of a return to the influence of high pressure, which could bring along sunny skies at times.
