LONDON (Reuters) – England had its joint hottest summer on record, the Met Office national forecaster said on Thursday, citing provisional data in a series which goes back to 1884.
In July, a heatwave that pushed through western Europe saw the highest ever recorded temperature in Britain of 40.3 Celsius(104.5 Fahrenheit). Large parts of England have since declared a drought as rainfall remains low.
“In England the warm and dry conditions have been more notable, with the mean temperature the joint warmest ever recorded (17.1°C) equalling that of summer 2018,” the Met Office said in a statement.
England had its sixth driest summer on record, and driest since 1995, according to Met Office data going back to 1836.
(Reporting by William James, Editing by Paul Sandle)
