The south-east of England experienced mains water supply issues last week due to high demand in the hot weather
The UK could see a warmer-than-average summer with the potential for more heatwaves, according to latest forecasts.
The Met Office released its three-month summer outlook on 1 June – the first day of meteorological summer – citing higher-than-normal chances of hotter weather during the month.
And for the whole summer – which runs through to the end of August – the outlook suggests “an increased chance of heatwaves and heat-related impacts”.
It comes after a late spring heatwave saw temperature records shattered across the UK.
A new all-time May record of 35.1C was set in Kew Gardens, London, replacing the previous record of 32.8C from 1944.
Yellow and amber heat health alerts were also issued for the first time this year.
Now, long-range forecasts from the Met Office and MeteoGroup – the latter being providers of BBC Weather data – suggest the summer ahead will bring the risk of additional heatwaves.
A “few notable high temperature spikes” are also possible according to MeteoGroup.
They also go on to say that “above-average temperatures” are expected for each of the months of June, July and August, and “significant bursts” of heat are expected in the UK, and across Europe.
But, according to the Met Office, the higher than average temperatures forecast comes as having a hotter summer is now twice as likely than the reference averaging period of 1991-2020, consistent with our warming climate.
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The United Kingdom has “almost certainly” had its hottest summer on record, according to provisional statistics from the Met Office.
The mean temperature across the country – which includes overnight lows as well as daytime highs – currently stands at 16.13C (61.03F) with less than a week of the season left to run.
This is well ahead of 2018, the previous warmest summer, which had a mean temperature of 15.76C (60.37F).
Temperatures during the rest of August would need to be four degrees below normal to prevent the record being broken – and this does not seem likely.
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Ed Miliband said the Conservatives had ‘abandoned 20 years of bipartisanship when to comes to climate’. Photograph: UK Parliament
Energy and net zero secretary lays out stark picture of how climate crisis and nature depletion is affecting UK
Ed Miliband has accused the Conservatives of being “anti-science” by abandoning a political consensus on net zero as he gave MPs a stark outline of how the climate crisis and nature depletion are already affecting the UK.
In the first of what is promised to be an annual “state of the climate” report, the energy and net zero secretary set out the findings of a Met Office-led study that detailed how the UK was already hotter and wetter, and faced a greater number of extreme weather events.
Miliband, who told the Guardian before the statement that politicians who rejected net zero policies needed to be accountable for their decisions, called for opposition parties to unite around the need for urgent action.
But speaking after Miliband, Andrew Bowie, a shadow energy minister, criticised what he called the government’s “shrill” language, saying the party was sticking by Kemi Badenoch’s decision to ditch the 2050 target for the UK to reach net zero.
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Miliband quoted the former prime minister Theresa May, who put net zero targets into law in 2019 and had argued that the real climate zealots were “populists who offer only easy answers to complex questions”. He added: “I couldn’t put it better myself.”
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“The lesson is clear. The choices we make as a country have influenced the cause of global action, and in doing so, reduced the impact of the climate and nature crisis on future generations in Britain. To those who say Britain cannot make a difference. I say: you are wrong. Stop talking our country down. British leadership matters.”
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Ardsley reservoir near Wakefield, West Yorkshire. This year was Yorkshire’s warmest spring for mean temperature since records began in 1884. Photograph: Richard McCarthy/PA
Hosepipe bans possible as low reservoir levels make region second in England to enter drought status
Yorkshire has become the second area of England to enter drought after the country recorded its driest spring in 132 years.
Hosepipe bans could be possible if the region did not have significant rainfall in the coming weeks as, despite recent showers, reservoir stocks were continuing to dwindle. Yorkshire Water reservoir stocks dropped 0.51% over the last week to 62.3%, significantly below the average of 85.5% for this time of year.
Last month, north-west England entered drought status as reservoir levels fell to half their capacity. Much of the rest of the country is in prolonged dry status, which is the step before drought.
Warm and dry weather is forecast, and long-range forecasts suggest a greater-than-normal chance of a hot summer.
Met Office data shows Yorkshire recorded its warmest spring for mean temperature this year since records began in 1884.
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Claire Barrow, the Environment Agency’s planning manager for Yorkshire, said: “Our climate is changing, and we had 22 days of almost no recorded rainfall in May.
“While we have had some rain at the start of June, it has not been enough to reverse the impacts of the prolonged dry weather.
Reform UK chair David Bull[…]. Credit: Good Morning Britain / YouTube
Farage’s latest chairman is a TV presenter who has attacked climate “madness” and called for the ban on fracking to be lifted.
Reform UK’s new chairman has repeatedly attacked climate targets as “madness” and “a killer”, supported fracking, and falsely dismissed the role of carbon emissions on heatwaves.
David Bull, a TalkTV presenter and former doctor, was appointed as the chair of Nigel Farage’s right-wing populist party this week following the resignation of its previous chair Zia Yusuf.
Yusuf, a luxury lifestyle entrepreneur, said that working to achieve a Reform government was no longer a good use of his time, before returning two days later in a new role.
Bull is now loyal Farage supporter, despite having called the Reform leader a “dangerous, prejudiced idiot” in 2014. He was a member of the European Parliament in 2019 for the Brexit Party, the predecessor to Reform UK, and served as Reform’s deputy leader from March 2021 to July 2024.
In a series of social media posts, Bull has repeatedly attacked the UK’s target to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050, which climate scientists have said is needed to limit global warming to 1.5C.
On the eve of the 2024 general election, Bull posted on Elon Musk’s website X.com: “Net Zero is a killer. It’s killing British jobs, communities and the economy. Only Reform UK will scrap Net Zero.”
In reality, according to risk management experts the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA), 50 percent could be wiped off the global economy between 2070 and 2090 if runaway temperature increases are not halted, while there could be more than 4 billion deaths.
In January of this year, he shared a Telegraph story about a lull in wind power and claimed that it made “a complete mockery” of Labour’s net zero chief Ed Miliband and his “religious obsession” with renewable energy.
As revealed by DeSmog, Reform’s constitution gives sweeping powers to its chairman, who cannot be formally sacked by the party leader.
Reform wants to scrap the UK’s net zero target entirely, stop subsidies for renewable energy, impose a “windfall tax” on wind and solar companies, approve new oil and gas extraction, and open new coal mines. The party’s leaders have also repeatedly made false statements about climate change.
As DeSmog has reported, Reform received £2.3 million between the 2019 and 2024 general elections from climate deniers, fossil fuel investors, and polluting interests. It is also openly seeking donations from oil executives.
David Bull’s Climate Stance
In May 2023, Bull hosted a TalkTV segment called “the madness of net zero”. He began by saying: “I think all of us feel that the climate is changing and that we want to go to net zero”. This is out of step with Reform’s position, and the title of his segment.
But he went on to claim, of the UK’s record heatwave the previous summer, “we don’t know whether that is a result of man-made emissions”.
In the same segment, Bull suggested net zero was “subjecting people in this country to become poorer”. In reality, according to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s net zero economy grew by 10 percent in 2024, employing almost a million people in full-time jobs with an average wage of £43,000 – £5,600 higher than the national average.
In October 2021, Bull endorsed a campaign by climate denial pressure group CAR26 for a Brexit-style referendum on net zero, and shared a poll commissioned by the group, adding: “We absolutely MUST have a referendum on the Government’s net zero policy. Retweet if you agree.”
CAR26 director Lois Perry now runs the UK-EU branch of the Heartland Institute, a notorious U.S. climate denial think tank. The UK-EU branch was launched in December by Reform’s leader Farage.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaking at the Heartland Institute’s 40th anniversary fundraiser in September 2024. Credit: Heartland Institute / YouTube
In November 2021, while the UK hosted the flagship UN COP26 climate summit, Bull attacked what he called “the hypocrisy of COP26”. He told TalkTV: “It is obscene. The hypocrisy that they [world leaders] fly in on private jets. People are sick and tired of being told what to do.”
In April 2022, Bull posted on X.com predicting that “Net Zero will be the new Brexit. It will be the most defining issue at the next general election”. Despite Reform’s best efforts, the pro-net zero Labour Party won a historically large majority.
Bull has also supported overturning the UK’s ban on fracking for shale gas.
In October 2022, when prime minister Rishi Sunak reversed the decision by his predecessor Liz Truss to lift the ban, Bull posted: “MASSIVE MISTAKE. We need cheap energy NOW. Fracking has allowed the US to have 100-200 years of cheap energy.”
Aside from the pollution caused by burning shale gas, fracking is environmentally controversial due to its triggering of earth tremors, and the vast amount of water that it uses. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee – a body of MPs that advises the government on climate matters – concluded in 2019 that fracking was incompatible with the UK’s climate goals.
TalkTV was launched in 2022 by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK as a rival to GB News, but in 2024 it switched to an online streaming service.
As DeSmog has reported, TalkTV presenters have frequently attacked climate action. In the COP26 segment, Bull was interviewed by fellow TalkTV host Mike Graham, who has declared on social media that “climate change is a load of old bollocks”.
Bull has resigned as a TalkTV presenter, following his appointment as Reform’s chair.
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