The country’s climate has continued to warm, with 2020 the first year to feature temperature, rain and sunshine rankings all in the top 10.
The NFU climate change team has pulled out some headline figures from the report, given the importance to British farming of understanding changing weather patterns.
Read the report
The Met Office's report, State of the UK Climate 2020, looks at the state of the weather throughout last year and places it in the context of historical data.
The key messages
Temperature
- All of the top-ten warmest years for the UK in records back to 1884 have occurred since 2002.
- The last 30-year period (1991-2020) has been 0.9°C warmer than the preceding 30 years (1961-1990). The greatest warming has been across the East Midlands and East Anglia, where average annual temperatures have increased by more than 1°C.
Rainfall
- The UK has been on average 6% wetter over the last 30 years (1991-2020) than the preceding 30 years (1961-1990).
- Six of the 10 wettest years for the UK in a series from 1862 have occurred since 1998.
- February was the UK’s wettest on record, with most of the country receiving more than twice the February long-term average rainfall.
Sea-level rise
- 9 of the 10 warmest years in near-coast sea-surface temperatures have occurred since 2002.
- Sea-level rise has accelerated in the UK over recent years. The rate of sea-level rise has been 1.5mm per year from the start of the 20th century. However, for the period 1993-2019 it has increased to over 3mm per year.
2020 extremes
- Highest daily maximum temperature: 37.8°C at Heathrow on 31 July.
- Highest daily minimum temperature: 22.3, Langdon Bay in Kent on 8 August.
- Highest daily rainfall: 239.9mm at East Wretham, Norfolk on 16 August.
- Greatest snow depth: 23cm, Copley, County Durham on 23 February.
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