A woman walking with her dogs on Wimbledon common on August 2 (Picture: Shutterstock)
If we summed up the weather in July, it would probably go something like ‘dull, dull, heatwave, dull’.
So far it has been a damp squib summer in the UK, and the stats are now in to prove it.
Met Office data scientist Neil Kaye said July was ‘a bit cooler than average, a bit duller and with average rainfall’.
The average mean UK temperature last month was 14.8°C, which is 0.5°C lower than normal when compared to the years 1991 to 2020, when it was 15.3°C.
From 1961 to 1990, though, the average temperature was still lower at 14.4°C,showing that the UK is still heating over the long-term due to climate change even if we haven’t seen a summer of tan lines and cans in the park.
June this year was also cooler than recent averages, and so far August hasn’t pulled anything especially sunny out of the bag, though there’s still the potential for warmer weather to come.
It comes after May was the warmest on record in the UK, capping it as the warmest spring in general – as well as being the sixth wettest, with less than normal sunshine.
Forecasters said the weather today will see some rain moving eastwards in the morning and after lunch, before clearing by late afternoon with just a scattering of showers.
The rest of the week will see much the same, with bright spells and showers on Wednesday, a bit more cloud and rain on Thursday, and then back to sunshine and showers on Friday.
It comes after we did have enough hot weather to officially class as a heatwave in much of the country at the end of last month.
This is when temperatures are above a certain point for three days in a row (ranging from 25°C to 28°C depending on which area of the UK it is).
Swans on the River Thames in Windsor yesterday (Picture: Shutterstock)
Nice weather to smell the flowers in the village of Abbotsbury, Dorset, on Sunday (Picture: Rex)
People packed out Weymouth Beach on a hot afternoon on Sunday, but the heatwave hasn’t lasted (Picture: Shutterstock)
A cyclist makes their way through Richmond Park at sunrise yesterday (Picture: Rick Findler/Story Picture Agency)
People walking in a rain shower on Whitehall in Westminster, London, on August 1 (Picture: PA)
The maximum temperature is set to be 25°C or 26°C in London today, which is not high enough to class as a heatwave as the capital has the highest threshold.
It will be cloudy in the morning but the sun will peek out in the afternoon.
Will there be another UK heatwave?
The chances of another sustained spell of hot weather aren’t looking likely in the immediate future, but the Met Office long range forecast gives a bit of hope for later in the month.
There will be ‘an increased chance, compared to normal, of short-lived hot spells’ in southern and eastern areas, but it’s still unpredictable while looking this far ahead.
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