UK weather: Where has summer gone? (2024)

FAQs

UK weather: Where has summer gone? ›

Cool weather for many

It's mainly down to something called the jet stream. This is a band of air that moves from west to east, and at the moment it is sitting south of the UK.

Why is the UK weather so bad right now? It all comes down to the jet stream, a fast-moving strand of air five to seven miles above the Earth that blows west to east. The jet stream has flowed across the UK or further south, allowing areas of low pressure to move in, which brings wind, rain and cooler temperatures.

The Met Office predicts 2024 could be the hottest year on record, with temperatures potentially breaching the 1.5°C threshold. Imagine London's bustling streets as hot as some of the world's most renowned tropical destinations.

Instead the first half of summer 2024 has seen the jet stream sitting across and even to the south of the UK, and that has meant spells of wind and rain interspersed with some brighter interludes. But even then it hasn't felt like “summer” because we've been in quite a chilly airmass with cool northerly winds.

Low pressure across the UK has led to an unsettled start to the month, with several frontal systems bringing bands of rain. This has brought rainfall totals for the season so far up, with summer 2024 actually around average for rainfall, although it may not feel it at the moment.” What's behind the recent weather?

Britain's weather is largely shaped by the polar front jet stream, a powerful 30,000ft-high air current, hundreds of miles wide, that forms where cold air from the Arctic meets warm air from the tropics.

“We're in northwest Europe. We're an island next to the Atlantic Ocean. We've got the jet stream that flows close to the UK,” Greg Dewhurst, a meteorologist, said. Sometimes, that jet stream is to the north and it's sunny, sometimes it's to the south, and it rains a lot.

On social media, some users have claimed that high levels of rainfall across the UK could only be explained by the deployment of cloud seeding on an industrial scale. This is false.

The ocean's proximity to England also contributes to its cloudy skies. The Gulf Stream, a warm ocean current, brings moist, warm air from the tropics. As this warm air meets the cooler air above England, it condenses, forming clouds and often leading to frequent rainfall.

Are British summers getting hotter? ›

Yes, research shows the UK has been getting hotter, with deadly heatwaves the result.

The current annual temperature is roughly 8.8 degrees Celsius, but by 2050 temperatures could rise to between 9.1 degrees Celsius and 11.7 degrees Celsius. The probability of heatwaves could also increase five-fold. In July 2021, the highest ever temperature in England was recorded in Heathrow at 40.2 degrees Celsius.

The coldest temperature ever recorded in summer in the UK is -5.6 °C recorded on 9 June 1955 in Dalwhinnie, and again on 1 and 3 June 1962 in Santon Downham in Norfolk.

The average UK winter has become around 1C warmer and 15% wetter over the past century, new Carbon Brief analysis shows. The analysis covers more than 100 years of data on temperature, rainfall, wind speed and snow, to assess how UK winters have changed.

The rainfall and below average temperatures are all down to a low pressure jet stream allowing in rain and wind.

We can “blame” the cooler weather “on the jet stream,” says BBC Weather presenter Sara Thornton. “That's the fast-moving ribbon of air high up in the atmosphere which steers low pressure systems towards us, bringing wind and rain, or keeps them at bay, allowing for warmth and sunshine,” she told i .

The Arctic air is also very dry. You might have noticed your skin feeling drier than usual lately, or that you can see for miles with wonderful views from the top of a hill or a building. This dry Arctic air blown from the north makes it feel colder compared to moist air, even when the air temperatures are the same.

The summer of 2022 saw temperatures surpass 40°C for the first time on record in the UK, and new national records set in England, Scotland, and Wales, according to the UK Health Security Agency's Health Effects of Climate Change report. Overall, the most recent decade has been the nation's warmest since records began.

With humidity, we experience the inability to lose sweat from the skin's surface to cool us down in a natural way.” Dr Simon Keeling of Weather Consultancy Services agrees that the humidity has been high “and that's why it's feeling much hotter than the recorded temperatures at the moment.