Summer 2026: Comparing “Central England” with the whole UK

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Summer 2026 was more exceptional in the Central England Temperature (CET) region than for the whole of the UK.

My previous post referenced a recent Met Office report on summer 2022. Here’s what they have to say about how extreme the temperatures were in the UK as a whole:

Fig 1 Excerpt from Met Office report on summer 2026

I was quite surprised by the assertion that summer 2026 was a “1 in 9 year event”. The graph the Met Office supplies (see Fig 1) suggests we haven’t had a summer even nearly as far above the trend line since 2006. That is, summers 2018 and 2022 (with the all-time record temperature) were only above average rather than hot. The “1 in 9 year event” claim is just about sustained by the number of comparably above trend summers in the Met Office figure: I see 1887, 1893, 1899, 1911, 1933, 1947, 1955, 1959, 1976, 1983, 1995, 2003 and 2006 as well as 2026, so 14 over 141 years.

Of course, summer 2026 was much more significant in the Central England Temperature (CET) record, as I discussed last week. Here’s the graph of meteorological summer temperatures since 1659:

Fig 2 Mean Meteorological Summer CET graph, created by Tim Joslin from Met Office data

And here’s a graph confirming that 2026 is the summer most above trend, that is, taking account of global warming, since 1976:

Fig 3 Mean Meteorological Summer CET graph, with deviations from trend, created by Tim Joslin from Met Office data

I explained the method in my last post.

Last week’s post suggested that, nevertheless, even hotter summers than 2026 are now possible (as the Met Office notes for the UK as a whole) and as global warming continues over the coming decades these will become more likely (as the Met Office also stress).

The Met Office report also provides a map (Fig 4, below) showing that summer 2026 was much more exceptional in England than Scotland, which, they say, “reported [only] its joint-sixth warmest summer on record”.

Fig 4 Excerpt from Met Office report on summer 2026

Clearly on this occasion England did most of the heavy lifting!