UK's Hottest Year Ever is 2022 Unless Cold Weather Dominate December: Met Office

The UK's hottest year on record will be 2022 unless cold weather will takeover in December, according to UK weather authorities. The assessment came after the country recorded an exceptionally warmer weather during its autumn season.

In addition, the deadly series of heat waves that struck the Northern Hemisphere, including the UK and the United States, Canada, and western Europe, also paved the way for the UK to experience several instances of record-breaking hot weather and temperatures never seen in decades.

UK's Hottest Year

In a Twitter post on Thursday, December 1, the Met Office said the UK would need a "near-record" cold weather to prevent 2022 becoming the UK's warmest year in recorded history. Provisional statistics show the recent Autumn season of the country as the third warmest on record for the UK.

In the post, the UK weather agency provided photos of decades-long summary of the mean temperature, rainfall amount, and sunshine duration across Great Britain. In terms of warm or hot weather, the temperatures are relatively high for Autumn 2022, especially in the northwestern and southeastern parts of the UK.

December Cold Weather

In a press release of the official Met Office report on Thursday, the UK weather authorities observed that Autumn 2022, which occurred from September to November, had an average mean temperature of 11.1 degrees Celsius. The record was topped by figures during the 2011 and 2006 autumn seasons in the UK, based on measurements starting in 1884.

While it is still hard to conclude that 2022 will be the UK's warmest year, the first 11 months set up the stage for a record-breaking warm year with only a cold December to be the determining factor is such new record will continue or not, according to Mike Kendon from the National Climate Information Centre, as cited by Sky News.

Kendon adds that the warmer weather is a clear sign of climate change and the chance of extreme heat, as seen in July, has increased. Recent studies based on climate scenarios have also shown this case to be plausible.

Western Europe Heat Wave

The Met Office report came out several months ago and prior to Autumn when the UK experienced an unusual and unprecedented record-breaking heat wave, which ravaged not only the island nation but also other countries in Europe.

The extreme weather event known as the "2022 European 2022 heat wave" or "2022 Europe heat wave" resulted in widespread disruption such as the occurrence of wildfires and multiple deaths due to heat-related illnesses.

As cited by Forbes, official figures show that 20,000 people died across western Europe due to the punishing heat waves and record-breaking temperatures during the summer, which span from June to August this year. The figure reportedly indicate that the extreme heat can likely become more frequent and more intense due to human-driven climate change, the US magazine adds.