LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) — The UK experienced its warmest spring on record — and its driest in more than 50 years — the country’s official weather service said on Monday.

Temperatures for the season have been frequently elevated this century, according to the data from the Met Office, which said: “Eight of the 10 warmest UK springs have occurred since the year 2000.”

The data “clearly shows that recent decades have been warmer, sunnier, and often drier than the 20th century average,” said Met Office scientist Emily Carlisle.

The Met Office said provisional temperatures registered between March and May this year averaged 9.51 degrees Celsius (49.1 degrees Fahrenheit).

That beat the last record, set in last year’s spring, when the average was 9.37 degrees.

The next warmest springs were in 2011, 2014 and 2007, according to the Met Office which has been recording temperature data since 1884.

This year, the 128.2 millimetres (five inches) of rainfall recorded across the UK during the season was “approximately 40 percent below the long-term average and still the driest spring in more than 50 years”, it said.

“England was particularly dry, experiencing its driest spring in more than 100 years, beaten only by 1893,” it added.

The Met Office’s Carlisle said: “The UK’s climate continues to change. What’s particularly notable about spring 2025 is the combination of record warmth and sunshine, alongside very low rainfall.”

“This spring shows some of the changes we’re seeing in our weather patterns, with more extreme conditions, including prolonged dry, sunny weather, becoming more frequent,” she said.

– Summer drought risk –
The recent weather’s dominant feature had been the persistent high-pressure systems, often coming from the Azores or mainland Europe.

These had lingered over the UK since late February and blocked the usual flow of Atlantic weather fronts, allowing high pressure to dominate, the Met Office said.

Last month, the Environment Agency (EA) called a meeting of its national drought group after it said levels in reservoirs were “exceptionally low”.

In the meeting, the EA’s deputy water director Richard Thompson warned that “changing climate means we will see more summer droughts in the coming decades”.

The agency added that, while there was no official drought yet, there was a “medium risk” of a summer drought without sustained rainfall.

The UK government has said it would step in to fast-track the building of two new reservoirs.

According to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, no new water reservoirs have been built since 1992.

Scientists warn that extreme and fluctuating weather events are becoming increasingly common as planet-heating fossil fuel emissions keep rising.