Data released by the Met Office has confirmed that this year's summer was provisionally the hottest on record after a spree of heatwaves.

Despite a cooler end to the season, a 40-day spell of temperatures above 30°C and five distinct heatwaves propelled this summer to the top, beating the summer of 2025.

With a high of 38.1°C marking the hottest day of the summer, and the fifth highest temperature ever, recorded at Kew Gardens on August 13th, the overall mean temperature across summer sat at 16.5°C.

Despite the fact that both June and July became the second-hottest of each month, and a cooler end to August, the overall consistency of hot weather has seen the seasonal record broken.

It wasn't just the hottest, but the sunniest on record since reliable records have been kept from 1884, resulting in very little rainfall which led to drought declarations and widespread water use restrictions.

Despite the drought, late rain and thunderstorms in August prevented any national records from being broken. Though England did see the driest July on record, and third driest for the UK as a whole.

As 2026 enters the history books, the infamous heatwave of 1976 falls lower in the list of hottest summers, now seventh overall.