Report by Duncan Williams for Pulman's Weekly News
The South West is likely to have been one of the major beneficiaries of an extraordinary summer of sunshine and heat, as the UK heads towards what is expected to be its hottest summer on record.
Provisional figures from the Met Office are due to confirm whether June, July and August 2026 have produced the highest mean summer temperatures since records began in 1884. The figures are expected to show that the previous record, set only last year, has been broken again.
For tourism-dependent communities across Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset, the prolonged spell of warm and predominantly dry weather will have provided a significant opportunity, encouraging people to spend more time on beaches, along the coast and in the region’s outdoor attractions, while potentially giving a valuable boost to hospitality, leisure and visitor businesses during the crucial summer season.
The exceptional conditions have been particularly striking for their persistence rather than simply the peak temperatures. There have been five widespread heatwaves, while temperatures of 30C or above have been recorded on 40 separate days across the UK, exceeding the previous record of 34 days set in 1995.
Temperatures of at least 35C have been recorded on 10 days, twice the previous record of five days, set in 1976 and matched in 2020. Temperatures of 35C or above have also been recorded during four separate calendar months, May, June, July and August, compared with the previous record of two months.
The UK has also experienced three days when temperatures reached at least 37C, a new record. Of the nine occasions on which temperatures of 37C or above have been recorded anywhere in the UK, three have now occurred this year.
The highest temperature of the summer was 38.1C at Kew Gardens in London on 13 August. It was provisionally the UK’s fifth-hottest day on record in terms of maximum temperature, although it remained below the all-time record of 40.3C recorded at Coningsby in Lincolnshire in July 2022. The South West, with its extensive coastline, beaches, countryside and outdoor tourism economy, was particularly well placed to benefit from the long periods of settled weather. A sustained run of warm days can be especially valuable to attractions, accommodation providers, cafés, restaurants, pubs and other businesses reliant on summer visitors.
The weather also arrived during a period when tourism businesses were able to make the most of demand for outdoor activities, coastal trips and traditional seaside holidays. While precise economic figures for the South West’s summer season have yet to emerge, the exceptional conditions created what could prove to have been an important boost for the region’s visitor economy.
The weather was not without its problems, however.
For much of the summer, high pressure dominated the UK’s weather, with dry conditions and winds from continental Europe repeatedly pushing temperatures higher. Some areas experienced more than two months without measurable rainfall.
Drought was declared across all of Wales and more than two-thirds of England, while wildfires caused serious damage in parts of the country.
There was some respite towards the end of August, when cooler and wetter weather returned to many parts of the UK. Heavy rainfall also caused flash flooding in some areas. Sheffield received more than a month’s worth of rain during the week of 24th to 30th August, more than the city had received during the remainder of the season combined.
Despite the prolonged dry weather, the summer as a whole is not expected to set a UK-wide record for dryness.
The persistence of the heat is nevertheless expected to make summer 2026 a landmark year for Britain’s weather.
The UK’s mean temperature for the summer had reached 16.48C by 11th August, and the Met Office said at the time that only average conditions for the remainder of August would be required for a new seasonal record.
Although the second half of August was cooler and wetter, temperatures overall remained mostly around or above the seasonal average.
England and Wales are both expected to set new summer temperature records, while Northern Ireland is likely to come close. Scotland, however, is expected to fall short of its previous record.
The extraordinary summer follows a record-breaking period that began before the traditional summer season. A heatwave at the end of meteorological spring broke the UK’s May temperature record by more than 2C.
June then produced another monthly record, with Lingwood in Norfolk reaching 38.0C on 26th June. The previous June record was 35.6C, recorded during the historic summer of 1976.
Further heatwaves followed in July and August, including one which lasted for three weeks in some locations.
The pattern is consistent with a changing UK climate, with scientists warning that summers are becoming hotter and heatwaves more frequent and intense as a result of human-induced climate change.
All five of the UK’s hottest summers on record have occurred since 2000. Until last year, the four hottest summers were separated by only five hundredths of a degree, before the 2025 record increased by 0.34C.
Now, just one year later, that record is expected to be surpassed again.
The UK sits on the western edge of Europe, the fastest-warming continent on Earth, which is warming at roughly twice the global rate. Scientists point to a number of factors, including land heating faster than the oceans, the influence of a rapidly warming Arctic and changes in weather patterns that can favour more frequent and intense summer heatwaves.
The implications are increasingly significant for communities and businesses that depend upon the weather, including the South West’s substantial tourism economy.
For visitors, 2026 may be remembered as a summer of long, hot days and exceptional sunshine. For the South West’s tourism industry, it may also prove to have been a particularly valuable summer, providing ideal conditions for the region’s beaches, coastal attractions, outdoor activities and hospitality businesses at one of the most important points in the tourism calendar.
But the same conditions that can attract visitors also underline the challenges facing the region. Water resources, agriculture, wildfire risk and the resilience of infrastructure will all come under increasing pressure if hotter and more persistent summer conditions become more commonplace.
( Photos: Pixabay Library / Pulman's Weekly News 📸 )