By UK records hottest New Years Eve on record
According to the Met Office, Britain has seen its hottest New Year’s Eve ever with temperatures reaching 15.8C (60.4F) in the west of England.
The previous record of 14.8C (58.6F) in Colwyn Bay, Wales, in 2011 was toppled.
The Met Office said the extremely mild spell was driven by a flow of warm, moist air from the Canary Islands.
Met Office spokesperson Stephen Dixon said the first reading taken at Ryehill in East Yorkshire at 11:00 GMT had “provisionally broken the New Year’s Eve record”.
“Our station at Ryehill, a small village in East Yorkshire has recorded 14.9C (58.8F) today, which tops the previous record of 14.8C (58.6F).”
That figure then rose to 15.8C (60.4F) at the Met Office’s station in Merryfield in southwest Somerset.
The previous highest UK daytime temperature recorded on New Year’s Day is 15.6C (60F) in Bude, Cornwall, in 1916.
New Years Day was also the warmest on record, with St James’s Park in central London seeing temperatures of 16.3C (61.3F) on Saturday as 2022 was ushered in.
Saturday’s high temperature was originally thought to be 16.2C before a slightly higher temperature was recorded later in the day.
It comes after what is likely to have been Britain’s dullest December since 1956 with less than 27 hours of sunlight across the country on average.
The Met Office said there had been just 26.6 hours of sunshine over 30 days – 38% less than the national average for this time of year.
The figure places it in the running to become one of the 10 dreariest Decembers on record, forecasters said.
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