- today
This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond 15/07/2025 – Whilst there will be some rain this week we look at how dry it’s been so far this year as well as more on the heat that has just passed. We’re also joined by Michael Kendon, lead author of the State of the UK Climate report for 2024. Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Burkill.
You may also enjoy:
– 10 Day trend forecast https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZDSHKqsgszMnk9d5IEF5UH
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You may also enjoy:
– 10 Day trend forecast https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_ZDSHKqsgszMnk9d5IEF5UH
– Podcasts exploring weather and climate https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGVVqeJodR_brL5mcfsqI4cu42ueHttv0
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We are the Met Office, the UK’s national weather service, and every day of the week we bring you a morning weather forecast and an afternoon weather forecast so that wherever you are in the UK we have you covered.
Forecast and any weather warnings are accurate at time of recording. To ensure you have the most up to date weather information, check the hourly forecast and live warnings on the Met Office website or app.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello, happy St. Swithin's Day. Would you like 40 days and nights of the weather that you have today?
00:06Well, I guess that depends where you are in the country and also your favourite type of weather and how desperate you are for rain.
00:13I'm Alex Burkill, Meteorologist Presenter here at the Met Office.
00:16Thank you for joining me for this week's Deep Dive.
00:19As always, I'm coming to you from our headquarters here in Exeter.
00:23And as always, make sure you hit the like button, leave some comments, make sure you share it
00:27and also make sure you're subscribing.
00:30Are you watching this on YouTube or are you watching this on Spotify perhaps?
00:33Did you know we're on Spotify?
00:35You can get a lot of our great content on Spotify as well as across YouTube and our other various social media platforms.
00:41So do make sure you check us out there.
00:43But let's get on. Lots to talk about as always.
00:45I want to talk about the weather as we go through the next few days and a little bit beyond.
00:50I want to look back at the heat that we had over the weekend.
00:54And I also want to look at the state of the UK climate.
00:57That report for 2024 was published earlier this week.
01:01And so I'm going to be looking at some of the key points that were brought out in that.
01:05I'm going to be joined by the main the lead author of that as well.
01:09So he'll be coming along later.
01:11But let's get going.
01:13And yes, it is St. Swithin's Day.
01:15The folklore, as you may be aware, says whatever the weather be, we will have 40 days and nights of that same weather.
01:21And fortunately, probably fortunately, maybe unfortunately, depending where you are.
01:26But there's no evidence to back that up that it's actually going to happen or has that ever happened in the past.
01:32But nonetheless, it's an interesting law that we like to talk about all the time.
01:36Well, at least this time every year.
01:38But it's a wet picture across many parts of the UK today.
01:42Much wetter than it has been recently.
01:44The wet weather has come in from the west.
01:46It pushed across parts of Northern Ireland overnight.
01:48And then it's fed into parts of Wales, northwest England, southwest Scotland as well.
01:53If I just run that through a little bit further, go through the next few hours.
01:57At the time, we're recording some parts of Dumfries-Garway area of Scotland, the borders area, even in two parts of northwest England, have already seen 50, 60 millimetres in some places.
02:07So it has been very wet indeed.
02:09And behind the more persistent rain, we have these intense thundery downpours that are developing.
02:15These are affecting parts of Northern Ireland.
02:17So we are seeing some impacts from the rain.
02:19And there are some strong winds around as well.
02:21And there's a fresher feel to things.
02:23I've just kicked the screen.
02:24So apologies.
02:25There is a fresher feel to things compared to what we've seen of late temperatures, much lower than they were over the weekend.
02:31It's a real change to the feel compared to kind of what we became used to for the last little while so far.
02:39But what happens thereafter?
02:41Let's look at the bigger picture.
02:42I'm going to get rid of the jet stream, put rain on instead.
02:45I'll move the UK over there just so you can see it.
02:47I get less in the way if I have it here.
02:49And, well, if I run it through the system that's bringing the unsettled weather through today, that clears away towards the east as we go through this evening and overnight.
02:59And then we do have a bit of a ridge of high pressure.
03:02I'll let it run a little bit longer before I pause it.
03:04And so actually much of the country has a largely dry day tomorrow.
03:09A few sherry bursts over parts of Scotland, maybe down the eastern side of England as well.
03:13Let's zoom in a little bit more.
03:15A few sherry bursts.
03:16But actually it's in the southwest where we're going to have the wettest weather.
03:20It's looking pretty damp here as a front tries to make its way in.
03:25Exact position of this front.
03:26A little bit uncertain still.
03:28But I think it will affect much Cornwall into parts of Devon, maybe Somerset, Dorset, and perhaps fringing into the south of Wales.
03:35And so a cloudier, bit wetter picture.
03:38Here, elsewhere, world temperature's picking up a little bit.
03:40We're looking at highs, mid to possibly high 20s tomorrow, 26, 27, 28 isn't out of the question because there will be a decent amount of sunshine on offer.
03:50Then the next system is going to start to make its way in.
03:54So more wet weather then pushes its way in from the west as we go through into Thursday.
04:00So some pretty heavy rain.
04:02There's the risk of some intense thundery downpours as that system makes its way across, particularly across parts of Northern Ireland.
04:09And further east, southeast, though, it's likely to stay largely dry.
04:14And I wanted to show you the rainfall totals for this coming Thursday.
04:18So here I have the forecast 24-hour precipitation rainfall amounts for Thursday.
04:24And these are all Met Office models.
04:26But we have the most recent model on the left-hand side.
04:29In the middle, it's the one before that.
04:31And even further back on the right.
04:33And what they show is there has been some changing in exactly how far across the UK that rain that's pushing in from the west is going to get.
04:43If we look at the first model run that I have, so on the right-hand side here, you can see that wet weather was spreading across much of the country.
04:51Now, if you caught my week-ahead forecast that went out yesterday, I tried to explain this, but I didn't have the time or the charts to back up what I was showing.
05:00The Met Office model at the time was too progressive.
05:03We could see that.
05:03We could look at the other models from ECMWF, from other Met services around the world.
05:09And they were much slower at bringing the rain across the country.
05:13So we kind of discounted this even at the time.
05:16Not that helpful when it was the only model that I could use in my graphics.
05:19But as time's gone on, the Met Office model has come more in line with what we were thinking based on everything that we had at our disposal.
05:28And so it now paints quite a different picture for rainfall amounts this coming Thursday compared to what it did just a little while ago.
05:36So instead of it being a rather wet story across much of the country, it really looks like the rain is going to be confined just to the far west, northwest of the UK.
05:46Heaviest rainfall totals look likely to be across parts of Northern Ireland.
05:50Like I said, there could be some thunder mixed in with them.
05:52Lots of places seen 10 to 20 millimetres, perhaps in excess of 50 millimetres in some places.
05:58So enough to cause a little bit of disruption.
06:01And some heavy rain across parts of Scotland in particular.
06:03But actually across the east, the southeast of the UK, even the far south, southern counties not seeing much, if any, rain likely here.
06:11Then what happens?
06:13Well, let's go back to our bigger picture.
06:15And again, I'll get rid of the rain.
06:17Let's dart ahead through Thursday.
06:20And so that eventually that front does try to make its way across the country.
06:26But even still, as we go through Friday, it's not likely to bring much, if any, rain to far south, southeastern parts.
06:35So it spreads its way eastwards across northern England, much of Scotland, and some parts of the Midlands as well.
06:40But some parts towards the south, southeast staying largely dry through the rest of this week.
06:46And then some wetter weather comes up from the south.
06:52There's the risk of some pretty intense downpours because of this.
06:56Some heavy, thundery rain, maybe.
06:58Let's zoom in again.
06:59And that's going to make its way northwards as we go through into the weekend.
07:03And then we're likely to have low pressure somewhere around the south, southwest of the UK as we go through Saturday.
07:10E.C. wants to have the low a little bit further west, but nonetheless, it brings the idea of some unsettled weather coming up from the south.
07:18And it does look like it could be pretty wet as we go through this coming weekend.
07:22More unsettled weather as we go through Saturday and also particularly through Sundays also looking fairly wet.
07:29Now, this is the global model.
07:30It's not particularly high res, so it's not giving the finer details that we would get at a shorter lead time.
07:36So there will be some drier spells interspersed amongst this pretty wet day.
07:41But it's definitely going to be quite a different feel to things this coming weekend compared to the last weekend.
07:48Rainfall-wise, it's still potentially going to be pretty warm or even hot.
07:52Temperatures are rising again this week.
07:54Like I said, on Wednesday, we're looking at highs of 26, 27, maybe even a little bit higher than that.
08:00And as we go through the week, there's the potential that we could get back into the low 30s across some places.
08:05Obviously, then, when the unsettled weather comes under the rain, it's not going to feel all that hot.
08:11But, yeah, it is still going to be very warm and there'll be some high humidity.
08:16And it's all of this that brings the potential for some heavier rain and also the risk of some thunder mixed in too.
08:24Now, I've already...
08:26Oh, one more thing that I wanted to show you.
08:28Looking even further ahead, what are the signs?
08:31And here's our probabilistic pressure trend.
08:34And if you're a regular deep dive, 10-day trend, 14-day outlook viewer, then you'll have no doubt seen this many times.
08:41Remember, the blues indicate lower pressure.
08:43Reds indicate higher pressure.
08:45Not any of those.
08:46As we look ahead, more recent model runs at the top.
08:49Older model runs near the bottom.
08:51And we're looking through the next two weeks.
08:53So, you can see through Wednesday, largely dry day for many places.
08:57So, a kind of pinky, almost red color.
08:59Higher pressure.
09:01The general drist.
09:02Then a bit of a transition period through the end of the week.
09:05Some places seeing some wet weather.
09:07Some places staying largely dry.
09:09Then by the weekend, fairly good agreement that it is going to be unsettled with low pressure firmly in control.
09:14Thereafter, and there aren't any really strong colors.
09:19There's a little bit of green, which shows kind of a neutral pattern.
09:21And that goes with the idea that, yes, next week, likely to get off to a fairly unsettled start.
09:27And then we're going to see sort of a changeable setup.
09:31And so, it's not going to be the blocking patterns that we've had recently.
09:35It's not going to be prolonged periods of one type of weather.
09:38What we're likely to see is a weather system coming through.
09:41So, a spell of rain, perhaps even some strong winds.
09:44And then something maybe drier in between before then the next weather system comes through.
09:48If we look at our zonal trends, this is whether our air is coming or weather is coming from the west or from the east.
09:56And as we go through into next week, strong signs, these blues showing a westerly is most likely.
10:03And with that then, going with the idea of that mobile westerly pattern.
10:07So, we're going to see systems rattling through relatively quickly.
10:10So, I think on the whole, next week, drying up compared to the beginning part, definitely compared to the weekend.
10:18There will be some rain at times.
10:19There will also be some drier, more settled periods.
10:22And on the whole, probably temperatures averaging a bit above average.
10:26So, if you get any dry, fine weather, it's going to feel very warm or hot.
10:29It's worth bearing in mind.
10:30Sea surface temperatures are above average currently.
10:34And so, yeah, it won't really take that much to get some decent warmth.
10:37It is the middle of summer after all.
10:41Speaking of warmth, though, let's look back at the heat wave that we had recently over the weekend and even into the beginning of this week.
10:49And now, this is a great chart looking at observations.
10:52This was created by my colleague, Dan Holley, one of our chief meteorologists.
10:56I'm not sure if Dan's done a deep dive yet.
10:59He will be great if he comes on a deep dive.
11:01Maybe he has.
11:02I'm trying to think.
11:03I don't think he's done one with me anyway, but I can't wait to speak to him.
11:07Thank you for creating this chart, Dan.
11:09What it shows is a number of things looking at the observations that we had in association with the heat that was across the UK recently.
11:17Now, looking to the south of the UK, the pinks indicate places where we had three or four consecutive days with temperatures of 30.
11:26And the lighter pinks showing three consecutive days and the darker pinks showing four consecutive days.
11:34So you can see a few sites are dotted around seeing those kind of temperatures.
11:38So across central southern England, even into parts of South Wales, we had several days with temperatures above 30.
11:44Remember, the threshold for a heat wave is only 28 around London and nearby areas and much less than this as you go further from the southeast.
11:52And so to get so many days of temperatures above 30, that's pretty unusual.
11:58Also, some station records were exceeded.
12:02The red circles indicating where the highest daily maximum temperature records for either July or all time were exceeded.
12:10And the blues indicating highest daily minimum.
12:13So a number of records were broken and some of these records go back more than 50 years.
12:18So it was an exceptional hot spell and it was widespread.
12:22The chart also pinpoints where we had the highest temperature each day.
12:27And it wasn't just across the south, southeast, as we often see with the previous heat wave.
12:33There have been three so far this year.
12:34It's hard to keep track.
12:36But the previous one, it was largely confined just to the southeast.
12:39But this one was pretty far widespread.
12:40In fact, on Sunday, the hottest place in the country was in Acnagar, where it reached 31.2.
12:47But what caused this heat?
12:49Well, this again in similar fashion to some of the recent heat waves that we've had.
12:53It's not your classic dragging up hot air from Africa across Spain or anything like that.
12:59No, actually, the original source of our air came from out over the Atlantic.
13:03But as I've discussed in previous deep dives, you may have seen the one where I got Matthew Lennart on, one of the chief meteorologists, to discuss this with me.
13:11It's the process of the air going through adiabatic warming by lowering down as it comes closer and closer towards the UK.
13:21That leads to the heating.
13:23And, you know, days are so long at this time of year.
13:25We had high pressure around, lots of sunshine.
13:28So that leads to all that heat building as well as the air is lowering down.
13:32You can see that. So this is the air reaching the UK and you can track it back and you can see it came from quite a bit higher up, a few kilometres higher up.
13:41And as it sank, as it made its way towards the country, that's when it got its heat.
13:47And that's when the temperatures within the parcel of air actually rose most.
13:52You can see the track that the air took because we had this Azores Ridge that built up from the south.
13:59And so you can see the air travelled over the north of the ridge.
14:01And then as the ridge pushed away towards Scandinavia, towards the northeast, the air then wrapped around and then started to push back northwards, coming up from the south a little bit more.
14:12And actually, an interesting thing about that, by the time that we got to Saturday, Sunday, because of the flow, the winds,
14:20actually, if you look at Kengon Summit, which is around 4,000 feet up above sea level,
14:26it was actually hotter over the weekend on Saturday on Kengon Summit.
14:31than it was in many places in, like, Kent, for example, including Faversham.
14:36Now, Faversham currently holds the record for the highest temperature recorded so far this year, 35.8, I want to say.
14:4535.8 are on the 1st of July.
14:48And so, yeah, pretty remarkable that the top of Kengon was hotter than it was in parts of Kent.
14:55And that's all due to where the air's coming from.
14:58There was an onshore flow that led to that as well.
15:01Right, I think that's enough about the heat wave that's happened recently.
15:08One more thing that I wanted to cover you before we get on to the state of the UK climate is about rainfall amounts that we've seen.
15:16There's been a lot of talk in the news recently because of droughts, hosepipe bans, because it has been so dry.
15:22Now, I wanted to start off by showing you the June rainfall stats.
15:26Now, we've already covered these, so I won't go into too much detail.
15:29But if you look at the UK as a whole for June, then actually it had around average rainfall.
15:34But that doesn't tell quite the whole story because England as a whole had a fair chunk less rainfall than average.
15:41And particularly across central and eastern parts of England, where rainfall was close to around 50, 60 percent compared to average for some places.
15:50Now, further west, it was much wetter.
15:52Western parts of Scotland, the northwest of England actually had much heavier rain or higher rainfall totals through this June than average.
16:00But it's just worth bearing this in mind that, yes, the country as a whole, the UK as a whole, June was average rainfall amount.
16:08But it did come off the back of a very dry spring.
16:12It was a very warm, sunny spring, but also very dry.
16:16I think it was the sixth driest spring on record.
16:19And so the fact that whilst it was average for the UK as a whole, that wouldn't have alleviated the ongoing issues because of the exceptionally dry spring.
16:29And also for some parts of the country, June was actually very dry indeed.
16:34And how's it looking so far this July?
16:36Well, you may have seen graphs like this before.
16:38This is looking at the rainfall so far this July for the UK as a whole and comparing it to previous records.
16:46So this compares.
16:48This is like the highest or so the wettest on record towards the along this orange line.
16:55The black line is your average.
16:57And then whether it's blue or orange around this line shows whether it's been wetter or drier than average.
17:02So we started off the month around or a little bit wetter than average.
17:06But recent in the last week or so, because it's been so dry for the last week or so, really, it's become drier than average.
17:15And so then that's added to the ongoing issues, which lots of regions, lots of counties are facing because of how little rain we saw through spring and for some places through June as well.
17:25Now, obviously, the wet weather that's coming through at the moment, and we're going to see more wet weather to come through this week, that will help alleviate the issues to some extent.
17:34But a lot of that wet weather is not really affecting eastern parts, particularly towards the southeast.
17:40And it's definitely not going to be a huge amount until at least the weekend.
17:43And so the weekend may bring quite a bit of rain across southern parts, and so that could change things quite markedly.
17:50The other thing when it comes to rainfall amounts is if we look at the UK as a whole for the year as a whole, and that takes in basically how we've ended up in this position with things so dry in many places.
18:03And you can see, really, apart from the very beginning of January, when you look at the year as a whole up to this stage, it has been well below average rainfall-wise.
18:14In fact, I think we're just below the fifth centile currently for rainfall, and so it is exceptionally dry.
18:21So it's not a huge surprise that some places are struggling with the small amount of rain that we've seen.
18:28So we've had a lot of dry weather this year.
18:30We've also had some exceptional heat that I've already touched on, a few heat waves so far this summer.
18:37Now, extreme heat, extreme rainfall is something that's covered in the State of the UK Climate Report for 2024, which was published earlier this week.
18:45And to talk about it a bit more, I'm joined by the lead author, Mike Kendon, climate scientist here at the Met Office.
18:51Thank you, Mike, for joining me.
18:54So the State of the UK Climate Report, why do we write those?
18:57Why do we come up with them?
18:58This report is looking at observations from the network of weather stations across the UK.
19:04We have observations that go back to Victorian times that provide us with a really long-term perspective on how our climate is changing in the UK.
19:12So how our climate is already changing.
19:17And these observations represent ground truth, so what we experience on the ground.
19:22It's an up-to-date report.
19:24It's available online, so anybody can go and read it and look at it.
19:28And it's really providing the hard evidence of how we are seeing our climate is changing now.
19:33And so we've seen some big changes.
19:37Let's talk about some of them now.
19:38Sure.
19:38Here, this chart, do you want to tell us what it's showing?
19:42Yeah.
19:42So if I just talk through this a little bit.
19:45Every year that goes by is another year on this warming trend that we are seeing in our climate.
19:50This is UK annual mean temperature from 1884, so we have this long-term context.
19:56And actually, the last three years have been among the five warmest on record for the UK.
20:03So these are the observations up to this point.
20:06What we see here are climate projections out to the end of this century.
20:09And there are some things to notice here.
20:14There is a spread that's associated with the uncertainty, with the range of possible things that may happen,
20:22associated with the variability in the data, but also how much, in a way, of greenhouse gases we emit into the atmosphere moving forward.
20:30So the green line and this grey plume is showing what we anticipate to happen under what we would say is a medium emission scenario.
20:38The important thing to note is that a year like the three that we've just had,
20:43we're expecting to be around about average by the middle of this century and cool by the end of the century.
20:51They could be cool by the end of the century.
20:54Bear in mind, these are three of the five warmest years we've had on record for the UK.
20:59So what we see now as being exceptionally hot years would just become the normal or even cooler than average.
21:05Absolutely.
21:05I guess the key point is the observations of what we've seen in the past are no longer a reliable indication of what we may expect in the future.
21:14Now there's quite, there is a warming trend, you can see it, but the trend seems to be accelerating in the projections.
21:21Yeah.
21:22I mean, there's quite a lot of spread with these.
21:24You know, these are different scenarios.
21:26So as I say, it depends on how much we emit into the atmosphere moving forwards.
21:34Obviously, an important message about climate change is that it is happening and there are two parts to it.
21:40There's the mitigating, so try to reduce emissions, and there's adapting to climate change, which is inevitable.
21:46But if we think about mitigating, what we're seeing if we mitigate is every fraction of a degree of global warming that we can avoid by reducing emissions means that we're less likely to be on one of these higher end scenarios where we could potentially be right at the top here and we may be further down here.
22:04So we're still going to see substantial increases, but they may not be as severe as what we would otherwise see if we carried on with what's been described in the past as business as usual.
22:14I understand.
22:15So if we make changes, then it could really help what happens going forward.
22:19Now, looking back at what we've seen currently, what does this chart show?
22:24Okay.
22:24So this is quite a complicated chart.
22:27We like complicated on the deep dives, don't worry.
22:29Right.
22:30Okay.
22:30Well, yeah.
22:31Okay.
22:31Well, I'll try and explain it simply.
22:32As our climate warms, as I say, we're warming at about a quarter of a degree per decade, that has the greatest implication on extremes, temperature extremes.
22:43So in particular, the frequency and intensity of temperature extremes.
22:48Which we've seen recently.
22:50We have seen them.
22:51Obviously, we've seen them.
22:51We've just come out the back of a very hot spell for the UK.
22:54So 30 degrees, temperatures in the low 30s are not particularly, not really unusual for the UK necessarily.
23:00But what is unusual is the frequency with which we're seeing these now.
23:05Remember, it's only a couple of years ago that we had 40 degrees in the UK for the first time.
23:10So temperature extremes, breaking temperature records is increasingly becoming a norm.
23:15It's something we expect as a norm as our climate warms.
23:18So what we're showing on this chart is we're looking at four different periods.
23:23These two are in the 20th century.
23:26This is towards the end of the 20th century into the 21st.
23:30And this is the most recent decade.
23:31And what we are doing is we are looking at the number of days a year, on average, where we see temperatures above the 1961-1990 average.
23:43Just straight above average.
23:45But this is like five degrees above that average.
23:47This is 10 degrees above that average.
23:49So what you really want to concentrate is the height of these bars and how the relative height of these bars changes.
23:57So if you look at the height of these bars, you say that if we look at 1961-1990, roughly half the year, around about 176 days, are above average temperature.
24:09That's gone up to 223 for the period 1991-2020, and then it's gone up to 242.
24:16So we do see a substantial increase there.
24:19But if we look at how many days we're seeing temperatures that are at least five degrees above average, there's fewer days overall.
24:26These numbers drop as you go to the right.
24:28But the relative proportional increase is much greater.
24:32So the number of days has actually doubled in frequency compared to what it was here.
24:38And if we look at eight degrees above average, the number of days has trebled, is getting untrebled.
24:45And if we look at ten degrees above, sorry, eight degrees above, I was looking at one column, eight degrees above, it's trebled.
24:51And we've gone to the other chart.
24:53Beep on.
24:54Eight degrees, it's trebled, and ten degrees, it's quadrupled.
24:58So if we're seeing four times as many days where temperatures are reaching a temperature of ten degrees above average than we're used to, that has real implications.
25:06Remember, it's the extremes of temperature that cause the greatest impacts.
25:11If we think about impacts on infrastructure, how our rail network works, what it's like travelling around in our cities on the underground, for example.
25:20Think about public health.
25:22So particularly for elderly and vulnerable people who struggle in hot weather and also impacts on the environment, too.
25:29So if we are seeing these substantial changes in these extremes, that's a real concern.
25:33So we're seeing the extreme days more common, and they're becoming more extreme when we get them as well, aren't we?
25:38Yes, that's right, yes.
25:39All right.
25:40We've already teased at this chart.
25:42So this is broadly looking at the same thing, but in effect for the coldest winter nights.
25:48To try to make sure.
25:49And we're saying we're losing those.
25:50We're losing those.
25:51See how these are really, really dropping off.
25:54So why is this important?
25:55Well, we might think it's quite good not to have as much severe winter weather as in the past, and that's maybe good.
26:00But we also need to think about things coming into the UK that we might not want.
26:05So disease factors, for example, you know, plant pests, diseases that affect our crops, things for agriculture and so on.
26:12Which the cold weather frost would kill off.
26:14Yeah, because the current, which the cold weather would kill off.
26:17So if we're no longer getting these things, we may see more problems in that way.
26:21So when we see our climate is changing, this may present opportunities to do new things, in terms of agriculture, for example.
26:29Grapes are doing better, aren't they?
26:30Yeah, but it may also mean that some things that are causing problems now in terms of pests and diseases will get worse.
26:39So there are real implications here as well.
26:42Now, with both these charts, we're comparing against the 1961 to 1990 average.
26:48But if we looked at the 1991 to 2020 average, it would paint a similar story.
26:54Yes.
26:54Just the figures would be slightly different because the averages are different because those temperatures have gone up.
27:00The key thing is that the relative height of these bars changes.
27:03It's as we go to the right, as we go more extreme.
27:06The actual numbers decrease.
27:08And so, obviously, extremes by their nature are more rare.
27:13So there's less of a sample size out here.
27:15So there is more uncertainty.
27:17So we do need to bear that in mind with these statistics.
27:20But nonetheless, there is a clear indication of some fairly dramatic changes in the frequency of these extremes of temperature that we're experiencing in the UK.
27:30OK.
27:31Right.
27:31Let's move on to the next chart then.
27:34Right.
27:34So it's not just temperature, is it, that you looked at?
27:37It's also rainfall.
27:38And they kind of go hand in hand, don't they?
27:40They do, of course.
27:40A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture and we're seeing heavier or more frequent intense rainfall events.
27:47Is that right?
27:47Yes, we are.
27:48Yes.
27:48So if we look at rainfall for the UK for the year overall, the most recent decade is about 10% wetter than this baseline reference period of 1961-1990.
27:59So we are getting wetter and that's basically because, you know, a warmer atmosphere has the capacity to hold more moisture, as you say.
28:07But what's really interesting is if you then look at, if you split this into the winter and summer half year, if we can do that, can we?
28:14Is that the next chart?
28:15OK, that's the next chart.
28:15OK.
28:16So this is the winter half year from October to March.
28:19So pretty much all of the trend, you can see there's a lot of, oh, sorry.
28:23Don't worry.
28:24You get used to not touching the screen.
28:25Yeah, OK.
28:26OK.
28:26If we split this into the winter half year, there's a lot of variability.
28:31First thing to say, there's a lot of variability in our climate in terms of rainfall and year-to-year basis.
28:35Some years are wet, some years are dry.
28:37But this line is showing you the trend where we're smoothing out that variability and looking at long-term trends in the data.
28:44And what you can see really is there's some decadal variability, but we have a pretty substantial rising trend towards the end of this series.
28:51So that the winter half year in the most recent decade is actually 16% wetter than 1961 to 1990.
29:01So that's a really substantial increase in the winter half year.
29:04If we look at the summer half year, which is hopefully the next one, is more flat.
29:10So basically, the trend in rainfall for the UK is dominated by the winter half year.
29:15So in the winter, that tends to be, it's not always the case, but it tends to be when we get the more severe flood events for the UK.
29:23So our climate is getting wetter.
29:26When we get systems coming off the Atlantic, the air is warmer.
29:30They have a capacity to hold more moisture.
29:32They're putting down more rain.
29:33So we're seeing more flood events.
29:37There's a lot of variability too, but we are seeing that pattern.
29:41And that's pretty topical at the moment when we've had so much dry weather recently,
29:45because you could say that often it's during the summer months where we could do with a bit more rain at times,
29:52whereas in the winter, more rain is often not welcome by many people.
29:56And so to see that the rainfall amounts during the winter months are getting higher,
30:00then that's a good or a real cause for concern.
30:02Yes, absolutely.
30:04Yeah, for sure.
30:04I mean, there's a lot of variability in our climate.
30:09We've just come off the back of the warmest spring on record for the UK
30:14and the sunniest spring on record for the UK by a very wide margin.
30:18It was actually the sixth driest spring on record for the UK
30:21and for parts of England, the driest for over a century.
30:25But it's worth bearing in mind for the UK overall that that does imply there are another five springs
30:30which were drier than the one we've seen.
30:33So dry springs are one characteristic feature of our climate that we should expect them from time to time.
30:41So there is this variability in our climate.
30:43And there are, you know, some very wet winter half years in the past, but we are...
30:47Let me go back.
30:49Can we go back to the previous one?
30:50We can go back, but it's a long-winded way.
30:52Yeah, okay.
30:53Sorry.
30:54Yeah.
30:54So there are some wet, you know, winter half years in the past, for example,
30:59or summer half years in the past.
31:01But what we are seeing is an increasing trend of rainfall in the most recent decades.
31:06And it's quite a jump, isn't it?
31:08Yeah.
31:08In just the last 50 years or so.
31:12Yeah.
31:13So...
31:13And then...
31:14Okay.
31:15Well, this kind of links onto this.
31:16Yeah.
31:16Sticking with rainfall.
31:17So this is showing us our county months.
31:20Rainfall...
31:21Wait.
31:22Tell me what this shows.
31:23Yeah.
31:23So this is counting.
31:24This is a count column here.
31:26We're looking at statistics for county areas of the UK each year.
31:33How many county areas of the UK have received one and a half times the rainfall that they would normally expect?
31:40I mean, in the next chart, it's twice the normal rainfall that they would expect.
31:44And what we're seeing is we're seeing an increase here as well.
31:47So we're seeing an increased frequency of months which are a lot wetter than average.
31:53If we go to the next chart...
31:56So if we look here, these statistics are really kicking up.
32:01So how many months of the year are there across county areas of the UK where we see twice the normal rainfall that we would expect?
32:11And that's showing quite a substantial increase towards the end.
32:14And so it's, again, it's the extremes, isn't it?
32:16Yeah, it's extreme monthly rainfall increasing.
32:18Like with the heat, we're seeing hotter weather more often and when it happens, more extreme.
32:23Similar with rainfall, we're seeing more frequent, intense rainfall events.
32:27Yes.
32:27And when they happen, it's wetter.
32:30Yes.
32:30And people already remember, if we go back, if we think about 2023 to 2024, it was actually the wettest winter half year on record for England and Wales in a very long running climate series.
32:41We have goes back to 1767.
32:46So that's more than 250 years.
32:48Last couple of charts then that you brought for us to discuss.
33:16So this one looks at our temperature records for each month for the UK.
33:21And why did you want to highlight this one?
33:23So I wanted to highlight this because this is showing for each of the 12 months of the year, what is the all time temperature record recorded for that month by any weather station in the UK.
33:34So we have observational data for the UK that goes back to Victorian times, you know, the late 19th century.
33:43And there are 12 months of the year.
33:45So the all time record for the UK is 40 degrees, which was set two years ago in July, 40.3 on the 19th of July, 2022.
33:55Three years ago.
33:55You're in 2024 mode because you've been looking at the state of the climate.
33:58Yes, yes.
33:59That happens quite a lot.
34:02But the thing I really wanted to note is that in bold might be a little bit hard to see here.
34:06Look how many of these months are in the last decade.
34:09OK, January 2024, February 2019, July 2022, November 2015, December 2019.
34:19So five of the 12.
34:20Five of the 12 months are in the last decade.
34:23And in fact, seven of the 12 months because there's two more records here in 2011 and 2003, which are this century.
34:31So this is part of this pattern that we're seeing as our climate warms, we are seeing more temperature extremes.
34:39And we should expect more of these in the future.
34:43You know, this is not really a surprise.
34:44This is what we expect as our climate is going to continue to warm.
34:47And we were so close to beating the June record as well this year.
34:51We did.
34:51Just a day out.
34:52Yes.
34:53Effectively.
34:53Yes, we did.
34:54Because we had that 35.8 on the 1st of July.
34:58If that had just been a day earlier, then we'd have six.
35:00So why do we break these records?
35:03The reason is, is that it takes a particular set of synoptic situation, particular weather type to have real extremes of temperature.
35:15And then so if we get that, it's quite rare, but we get that.
35:18That additional climate change factor just tips it over the reg of what we've to exceed what we've seen before.
35:24So we're going to continue to see this happening in the future.
35:26Yeah.
35:27So we still have the variability.
35:28There'll still be cold days, there'll still be warm days within every season.
35:31But when it's warm, it could be all hot.
35:34It will be even hotter than it would have otherwise been.
35:37And then it's not just rainfall.
35:39It's not just temperature that you've looked at.
35:41There are lots of other things that have been impacted by our changing climate.
35:45And one of them is sea levels around the UK.
35:48Yeah.
35:48Annual mean sea level around the UK.
35:50This is a series.
35:51This is provided by co-authors from the National Oceanography Centre.
35:54This is an index from 1901 to date.
35:58What it shows is that annual mean sea level around the UK has risen by nearly 20 centimetres, 19 and a half centimetres, since the start of the 20th century.
36:10What you'll note, we have this rise, but actually we have a substantial increase towards the end of the period.
36:17So sea level rise around the UK is accelerating.
36:20And obviously the sea level around the UK is rising because of two factors.
36:24As our oceans warm, you know, we're getting marine heat waves around the UK as well.
36:29That's another thing we could talk about.
36:31But as the ocean warms, the sea expands due to thermal expansion.
36:37And the other factor is, of course, the melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
36:41So this is a long term change that is going to continue into the future.
36:45And, you know, the changes that we are seeing here, 20 centimetres since the start of the 19th century, are small compared to projections looking out to the end of this coming century and beyond, where we may be talking about changes of the order of metres, you know, which is really concerning.
37:04If we think about key pieces of infrastructure that protect us from flooding, think about something like the Thames Barrier protecting central London.
37:14So key strategic decisions need to be made to determine what to do in the future about things like this.
37:24So in the report, we have this rising sea level, but we also look at storm surge events around the UK.
37:30So this is where we have a storm system coming in.
37:33It pushes up a bulge of water that interacts with the bathymetry, so the depth of the water and the shape of the UK coastline,
37:41to create a bulge in the water levels at the surface.
37:45If we have that combining with perhaps large waves as well, with very windy conditions,
37:50and then the timing with the spring neap tide cycle is critical.
37:53So if it's with a spring tide, if all the factors come together in a certain way,
37:59there is the real potential for a major storm surge event to hit the UK.
38:02And we have had events like this, really severe events in the UK, in the past.
38:08So, for example, in January 1953, down the east coast of England is a good example.
38:14But what the rising sea levels, this series is telling us, is that this problem is only going to get worse.
38:20This problem is going to get worse because the baseline is getting worse.
38:24And so when you have an event like Storm Kathleen, for example, in 2024, when you get that event and everything's together,
38:32all the ingredients are there for the high levels, it's going to cause even more issues.
38:38So I suppose the critical thing is, why are we writing this report?
38:41It's to provide that hard evidence of what is happening now,
38:45because those making decisions, policy decisions about this,
38:49they need to make decisions based on the hard evidence of what we are seeing.
38:55You know, this report, State of UK Climate, is about what is already happening,
39:00what has already happened in the UK.
39:01But obviously here we are looking at projections out to the end of the century and beyond as well.
39:07Thank you very much, Mike. That was really interesting.
39:09Before you go, were there any surprises from this year's report?
39:13Obviously it's an annual report, so you do them every year.
39:16Were there any surprises, anything you did differently this year?
39:19Well, we've included some new analysis, in particular looking at the frequency and intensity of temperature extremes,
39:26and in fact the monthly rainfall extremes that we've not looked at before.
39:30This is a monitoring report from one year to the next.
39:34It's perhaps not surprising that the main message is broadly similar from one year to the next.
39:40But I think what I find, and I will use this word alarming,
39:44is the rate of change that we are seeing and the implications that we can see that are going to play out for our society.
39:53But as I say, going back to the science, the critical thing is that decisions that are made are made based on the best available science evidence.
40:00Thank you so much, Mike, for joining us.
40:03It's really interesting, really great talking to you.
40:05The State of the UK Client Report is available to view online.
40:09We'll put a link to it in the comments below and the description.
40:13Thank you as well for watching this week's Deep Dive.
40:16I hope you've enjoyed it.
40:17Remember, as I mentioned at the start, hit the like button, hit the share button.
40:21Anyone else that you think may be interested in anything I've covered, anything I've covered with Mike, let them know about it as well.
40:27Do leave your comments and questions.
40:29We will be answering some of them in the Weather Studio Live on Friday.
40:33It will be Aidan and me doing this week's Weather Studio Live.
40:36And tomorrow on Wednesday, we have the 10-day trend.
40:39I think it's Alex Deacon doing it this week.
40:42Otherwise, that's it for me.
40:44I do hope you have a wonderful week.
40:45I'll keep in touch.
40:47Stay safe with the wet weather that's coming through and also the potential for a bit more heat and warmth towards the end of the week.
40:53And like I said at the start, don't forget, we're also on Spotify.
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