UK sizzled in fifth warmest July on record
The mean average temperature across the month was 16.8C, according to provisional figures from the Met Office.
This is slightly below the warmest July on record in 2006, when the average reached 17.8C, and is also behind 2018 (17.2C), 1983 (17.1C) and 2013 (17.0C).
July was the sixth consecutive month of above-average mean temperatures for the UK and followed the warmest June on record for England and second warmest June for the country as a whole.
The first day of July brought the hottest temperature of the year so far, with 35.8C measured in Faversham in Kent, and two separate heatwaves affected much of the UK in the first half of the month.
The long spells of dry weather this year have already led to four areas being declared officially in drought: the East Midlands, north-west England, the West Midlands and Yorkshire.
All four UK nations recorded one of their top 10 warmest Julys: Scotland and Northern Ireland saw their sixth warmest, England its seventh and Wales its tenth.
Met Office temperature records begin in 1884.
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