Heatwaves Are Here To Stay: Summers 'Will Be Warmer And Drier For Next 30 Years'

If you’re loving the 35C temperatures we’ve had in the UK this summer then you’ll be pleased to hear that sweltering summers are here to stay.

Not only that, but winters are going to get less cold - although they’ll also be a lot wetter.

New research from the Met Office shows that summers are going to get hotter and drier over the next 30 years.

Lead scientist Dr David Sexton, head of scenarios development at the Met Office, said: "The future UK climate can now be described in terms of the extreme hot, cold, wet or dry seasons which could associate with floods, droughts, heatwaves and cold spells that impact society.'

While ice cold winters and wet summers are looking increasingly unlikely as each year passes, there is still the chance of them happening in individual years.

Still, while all this might be exciting news for sun worshippers, to really feel the affects you’ll have to live until at least the year 2100.

By the end of the century the likelihood of experiencing a blazing hot summer of the kind now seen every 20 years rises to 90%, making scorchers the norm.

The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows the odds of having a colder than average winter in the UK dropping from around 20% in 2020 to just 4% by the end of the century.

Very cold winters such as the one that occurred in 2009/10 will become almost non-existent. The chance of experiencing one of these is less than 1% by 2100.

Over the next two decades there was still a 35% to 40% likelihood of summers being wetter than average, but the odds fall to about 20% by 2100.

The chances of a very wet summer - defined as 20% more rain than the 1961-1990 average - were expected to fall from 18% in 2020 to 10% eight decades later.

Met office senior scientist Dr Glen Harris, who co-authored the research, said: "While there is a trend towards warmer winters and drier summers, there will still be a lot of variations in weather from year to year.

'Cold winters and wet summers just become less likely, and we will still have to be prepared for them.'
Anyone else wishing they were born in 2080?