New Official UK Highest Temperature Confirmed By Met Office

The Met Office has confirmed that the UK's highest ever temperature was recorded last Thursday.

During last week's brief heatwave, a temperature of 38.7C was recorded at Cambridge University Botanic Garden.

The previous record stood at 38.5C and was recorded in Faversham, Kent, in 2003.

Last week much of central and western Europe experienced a heatwave that has seen several countries record their highest temperatures ever.

Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands also saw their highest recorded temperatures. In the UK it has taken a few days to verify the reading, but the Met Office confirmed their findings in a tweet.

They said: "A new UK temperature record of 38.7C has been confirmed.

"The reading at Cambridge Botanic Garden has been quality controlled and is officially the highest temperature on record in the UK "

The particular station in Cambridge that took the recording reports daily to the Met Office. Some other stations only report monthly, meaning that there is a chance that other readings could see the record increase further.

Any other readings that the Met Office receives will be subject to the same verification and quality control process as this one from Cambridge.

Whilst heatwaves aren't exactly a new phenomenon, there are concerns that record breaking temperatures such as this one show that, with climate change, we'll see more frequent and intense bouts of similar heat.

Dr Mark McCarthy, from the Met Office National Climate Information Centre, said: "Historically UK summer heatwaves would typically tend to peak in the low 30s Celsius with extreme events reaching the mid-30s.

"The UK climate has been warming since the mid 20th Century, and this has been accompanied by similar increase in the hottest day of the year, which for the most recent decade has been 0.8C higher when compared with the period 1961-1990.

"Climate change has increased the likelihood and severity of heatwave episodes across Europe, which will have also increased the risks of a 40.0 C temperature event in the UK."

"In 2018 the Met Office published an analysis showing that human emissions of greenhouse gases made the summer of 2018 thirty times more likely to occur."

Records for temperatures around the UK were first taken 178 years ago in 1841.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Science, UK News, Interesting

Tom Wood

Tom Wood is a LADbible journalist and Twin Peaks enthusiast. Despite having a career in football cut short by a chronic lack of talent, he managed to obtain degrees from both the University of London and Salford. According to his French teacher, at the weekend he mostly likes to play football and go to the park with his brother. Contact Tom on [email protected]

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