Official News Blog

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. 

More active Atlantic hurricane season ahead?

27 May 2022

The Atlantic hurricane season – which runs from June to November – is most likely to be above average for tropical cyclone activity according to the latest seasonal prediction from the Met Office.

Heatwave helps mark fifth warmest July on record

2 August 2021

The mid-month heatwave has helped the UK to its joint fifth warmest July on record according to provisional Met Office figures, with Scotland and Northern Ireland recording their third warmest July, in a month where Northern Ireland also broke its all-time high temperature record, exceeding 31C multiple times.

Climate Data Challenge – working in partnership for innovation

2 April 2021

As Governments, organisations and individuals around the world seek to tackle the challenges of climate change, creativity and innovation are key to finding ways to improve our resilience to weather and climate.

Global temperature: how does 2020 compare so far?

23 June 2020

The Earth’s average temperature has increased by about 1 degree C since pre-industrial times, which for the climate record is calculated as the period 1850-1900.

Coronavirus will impact the atmospheric CO2 record – but not enough to slow global heating

7 May 2020

The drop in global carbon-dioxide emissions following the coronavirus pandemic could be large enough to noticeably slow the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere this year, a team of scientists at the Met Office and Scripps Institution for Oceanography have predicted.

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.

New year begins with a sudden stratospheric warming

5 January 2021

Meteorologists are already able to note a significant atmospheric observation in their 2021 diaries with the beginning of a Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW), which started over the weekend – this was forecast last week.