Summer Warmest On Record For Britain - October Unseasonably Hot - BBC

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With less than 10 weeks to go until Christmas, people and wildlife across the country are enjoying the warmest autumn for decades. But, with the British weather not playing along with the great winter build-up, the usually cold festive season seems a distant prospect.

It has been the warmest extended summer period on record, according to the Met Office - and temperatures look likely to remain unseasonably high for the rest of October. Gardeners have seen their summer flowering plants lasting longer, late migrating birds are feeding up on bumper numbers of insects, and Mediterranean moths and butterflies are heading to Britain.

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According to Met Office figures, between May and September the average temperature was 16.2C. That is 2C warmer than in any year between 1961 and 1990. July was also the warmest month ever, September hit record temperatures, and now the first half of October has seen temperatures about 3C above average.

Many put Britain's expanding summer down to the greenhouse effect. David Parker, of the Met Office, said: "It is one thing to get a month with very high temperatures, but to get a record-breaking, five-month unbroken stretch over the entire period, that is a dramatic confirmation that we are now experiencing significant levels of global warming."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6066354.stm