Official news blog

Heat in cities – the health impacts of a changing climate

10 January 2023

Health is already impacted by the weather, especially in urban areas, with heat in particular causing heat-related illnesses, exacerbating existing heath conditions and excess deaths. In a changing climate, these impacts can be expected to increase.

Climate change and health

6 January 2023

Exploring how climate change can impact health, and how these risks can be mitigated.

Cold December concludes warmest year on record for UK

30 December 2022

NOTE: This blog has been updated to include the full provisional statistics for December 2022. A cold December bucked the trend of 2022 and ended the year as the only month which saw below-average temperatures, according to provisional Met Office figures.

What can we say about the weather this Winter?

6 October 2022

Professor Paul Davies Met Office Fellow (Meteorology) and Chief Meteorologist said; “Weather patterns for October look mobile with a westerly or south westerly air flow likely to bring Atlantic weather systems across the UK at times, resulting in periods of wet, and potentially windy weather, a greater proportion of which will affect the north and west. Temperatures are predicted to be above average in October.

‘Fusing’ the best of UK science to build resilience to high-impact weather events and climate change

30 September 2022

An urgent need to understand the increasing impacts of extreme weather and climate change and how these affect society is the focus of an expanded Met Office initiative which is developing deeper partnerships with key British universities.

Met Office concludes project demonstrating uncrewed aircraft operations

27 September 2022

Uncrewed drones could be a step closer following the conclusion of a project as part of Future Flight Challenge Phase 2. The Met Office supported the consortium lead, sees.ai, in the ‘Distributed BVLOS Aviation System’ project, aimed at developing and validating the first aviation system capable of enabling commercial ‘Beyond Visual Line of Sight’ (BVLOS) drone services at scale alongside manned aviation (including complex missions in congested urban and industrial environments). 

July 2022: a dry run for UK’s future climate?

27 July 2022

So far July 2022 has been the driest July in England since 1911. Up to 26 July there has been only 15.8mm of rain averaged across England; this is only 24% of the amount we would expect in an average July. 

Summer 2022: a historic season for northern hemisphere heatwaves

19 July 2022

Today [Tuesday 19 July 2022] has been a momentous day for the UK’s climate. Professor Stephen Belcher – Met Office Chief Scientist – and Prof Paul Davies – Met Office Chief Meteorologist – put the UK’s and European heatwave into a global context.

Maximum temperatures and how they’re recorded

18 July 2022

Here at the Met Office we have been collecting weather observations since we were founded, and the earliest daily temperature data we have in our digital climate database is from 1853. However, there are a number of elements to verify temperatures and any associated records which ensure a fair comparison and consistency across our annals.

A change in the pollen season – but is it worse than normal?

10 June 2022

The effects of hay fever are already increasingly being felt across the UK, with grass pollen now fully in focus following the spring release of many types of tree pollen.