Heat record for New Year’s Day in the UK

The 2021 weather year ended with thermometers at Merryfield in Somerset, 15.8 – ten degrees higher than the previous Welsh New Year’s Eve record ten years ago. Therefore, it is not entirely unexpected that Britain will also have its hottest New Year’s date.

https://twitter.com/metoffice/status/1477338551394217992

16.3 degrees was the new record for New Year’s Day, and was measured at St James’s Park in London, breaking the previous New Year’s record of 15.6 degrees at Cornwall in 1916. Exactly 15.6 degrees is now reported in Howard, Wales. It was the hottest New Year’s day ever, with temperatures hovering around 15.9 degrees Celsius in Scotland’s Ashnagart.

The immediate explanation for the relatively heat wave is that the air coming from the Azores is forced over Britain. On Sunday, it will disappear and the temperature will drop, but will be above average for that period.

Researchers have warned that global warming could lead to extreme weather in all possible directions. Although it may be too early to find the exact cause of the current temperature recordings, the UK National Weather Service’s Meteorological Office reports that warming has been recorded and that different heat records are now being broken nine times more than before industrialization.