How is the weather changing where you live? Use our new interactive tool to find out

More daily heat records have been set across the country this year than any previous year on record.

More than 4,000 daily heat recordsi have been broken across 263 weather stations in our analysis, compared with just 43 cold recordsi.

And while most of England and Wales was record-breakingly warm and dry, analysis by the Sky News data and forensics team reveals that some parts of the country experienced unusually wet conditions.

See how temperatures today compare with previous years, and how this year's heatwaves and drought have either hit or missed your area. Search for your postcode or nearest city.

Heatwave after wave

It was how sustained the high temperatures were this summer that made it really remarkable.

In the famous summer of 1976, the weather station at Heathrow Airport recorded 20 days over 30C. In the 50 years since, no weather station had recorded more days over that threshold in one year. Kew Gardens did match it in 1996.

However, this year, 20 weather stations across the south of England - from as far west as Wiltshire to as far east as Cambridge - either equalled or beat that total.

At Heathrow, there were 30 days over 30C this summer - a 50-year record not just beaten but smashed.

The year 1976 does still hold the record for the most consecutive days over 30C, with 16 in a row recorded at both Heathrow and Cardington in Bedfordshire. The longest consecutive streak this year was eight days, between 5 July and 12 July, also recorded at Heathrow.

There have been 119 days so far this year in which a hot weather record was set somewhere in the UK, compared with just eight days where a cold weather record was set.

Some 228 weather stations recorded their warmest ever 23 June - representing more than 85% of the UK.

In Slapton, on the south Devon coast, 36 days were hotter than the same day in any previous year back to 1961. Parts of Scotland had only two such days.

This year's weather was unusual even by the norms of recent years, but the long-term trend is clear. More than a quarter of all daily heat records across our weather stations have been set since 2020, compared with fewer than 2% of cold records.

Three-quarters of England and Wales had their driest summer on record this year, with six weather stations in the south of England recording less than 2% of their normal rainfall between 15 June and 15 August.

But a third of Scotland had more rain than a typical year, and some parts of the Highlands had their second wettest summer since at least 1961. In Aultbea, there was 75% more rain than during a typical summer.

Methodology

We downloaded a total of almost 10 million daily maximum temperature and millimetres of rainfall records from the Met Office Integrated Data Archive System (MIDAS Open) for 265 synoptic weather stations used by the Met Office for historical weather records, up to the end of 2025.

Some stations started reporting data earlier than others, and some had long periods where data is not available. To ensure that each area had the same continuous series of records available for analysis, we have filled gaps in the data by using the HadUK resource (also from the Met Office). It dates back to 1891 for daily rainfall data and to 1931 for daily temperature records.

The HadUK resource contains observation-based gridded estimates for each 1km x 1km square in the UK, informed by interpolating between quality-controlled weather observations from 555 temperature stations and over 4,000 rainfall stations. It takes into account geographical factors like altitude, proximity to the coast and how urban an area is.

We filtered the HadUK resource to maintain only the land-based grid-square that was closest to each of our 265 weather stations, meaning we were left with upwards of 22 million daily temperature and rainfall records. The HadUK figures for 2026 are provisional and may be subject to amendment or revision.

To check compatibility with the observed MIDAS data, we examined the figures from matching locations on matching days.

We found that temperature data had a correlation of more than 99.9% for each decade from the 1930s onwards, with the average difference between the MIDAS and HadUK values less than 0.1°C.

The correlation between the rainfall data varied in the early part of the series - still around 97% on average but with periods where it was weaker. From the 1960s onwards, when more weather stations were providing data from which to interpolate, the correlation averaged 99.4%.

We decided to restrict rainfall data to being from the 1960s onwards as a result, and later decided to also limit temperature data to this period as well as we were able to check correlation between HadUK and MIDAS records from a larger sample of weather stations.

Millimetres of rainfall can vary more significantly across local areas compared with temperature, but the average difference between MIDAS and HadUK figures from the same places on the same days is less than 0.1mm. For our final analysis, we have used the value from MIDAS rather than HadUK where both are available.

To associate user postcodes with weather stations, we simply establish which of our weather stations is closest in distance - as the crow flies - to the central point of the postcode. The weather conditions at the measuring stations themselves may differ from the weather at your specific postcode.

"Normal" temperatures from the first part of the tool are an average of each area's maximum daily temperatures from 1961 to 2020, plus the three days before or after. For example, if you were to use the tool on 25 December, we would be comparing against what the temperature has been at the same location from 22-28 December each year.

To define whether today is a "normal", "cold, "cool", "warm" or "hot" day, we simply count which category the highest number of our weather stations belong to.

For the other parts of the tool that examine the record temperatures on a given day, we are comparing against data from the same day only.

To establish whether today's weather is likely to be hotter or colder than "normal", we are using forecasts from the Met Office, selecting the closest of more than 5,000 forecast locations to each of our weather stations. In many cases they are the same location, but in some places they are further away.

There are a small number of examples where we have opted to use a forecast location that is not the closest geographically to the historical weather station we are comparing with, because the meteorological conditions were more similar than the closer station.

While testing, we observed that we were getting consistently higher or lower values for certain locations as a result of the forecast location and weather station being subject to different geographical conditions - for example being at altitude or being significantly closer to the coast.

We removed two of our 265 weather stations from the output because it was not possible to get comparable forecast information. People whose closest station would have been one of those removed will have their postcode associated with the next closest weather station instead.

We chose to use forecasts rather than observed temperatures for this part of the tool because we could source temperature data only at hourly intervals, meaning it would be possible for us to miss a maximum daily temperature if it occurred some time between those intervals.

It also enables us to tell users the likely difference from the typical temperature from the start of the day, rather than having to wait until we reached the maximum temperature at some point in the afternoon.

Forecast rainfall data is available in terms of "likelihood to rain", but not in terms of "likely millimetres of rain", so rainfall analysis will be updated each month rather than changing daily.

While constructing this tool, we received advice and assistance from the Sky News Weather team, as well as the Met Office, and Professor Ed Hawkins MBE, from the National Centre for Atmospheric Science at the University of Reading.

Sky News is responsible for all final decisions as to the methodology used.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

(c) Sky News 2026: How is the weather changing where you live? Use our new interactive tool to find out