After further assessing the temperature data for the UK as a whole for summer 2018, the Met Office has confirmed that the figures are so close it is declaring it as the joint hottest on record together with the record-breaking summers of 2006, 2003 and 1976.

The margin between the mean temperatures at the top of the league tables (records dating back to 1910) is so small, at around 0.03 of a degree, that it is impossible to separate the years and say if 2018 will be an outright winner.

Image: Met Office 

The Met Office described 2018 as clearly the warmest summer on record for England, with a provisional figure of 17.1C as of 31 August on the Met Office's mean temperature measure for the whole country, beating the 17.01C of 1976.

It is not going to be a record for Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales where the records stand at 14.1C (2003), 15.5C (1995) and 16.1C (1995), respectively.

To get an even longer-term perspective from the multi-century Central England Temperature* (CET) series, which dates back to 1659, only 10 summers recorded an average temperature above 17C. Six of those have occurred since 1976, and only two (1826, 1846) were pre 20th Century, which is consistent with the general picture of warming climate both globally and in the UK, the Met Office said.

Central England Temperature covers a roughly triangular area of the UK, enclosed by Bristol, Lancashire and London. The monthly series begins in 1659, and is the longest available instrumental record of temperature in the world.

After a hot June and July, August turned out to be closer to average with the mean temperature less than half a degree above average and rainfall 8% below average for the UK as a whole. Rainfall varied across the country with areas such as Banffshire, Denbighshire and Anglesey getting around half of the expected August rainfall while areas such as Berwickshire and Sussex getting around 30% above average.