Weather / Summer 2025 the second warmest on record
Higher temperatures set to become the new normal – even in Shetland
SHETLAND has been enjoying the second warmest summer on record, with temperatures 1.5°C degrees higher than average.
Mean average temperatures during June, July and August were 13.33°C, according to the Met Office. Only the summer of 2003 was warmer at 13.63°C.
Temperatures in August were 13.4°C, which is 0.7°C above average, making it the eighth warmest August on record.
Local service Gulberwick Weather recorded average temperatures of 0.5°C above average.
As reported last month, July 2025 was the warmest July since records began in 1884.
Meanwhile rainfall in August was almost exactly average, with 88.9mm which is 99 per cent of the August average rainfall.
Latest data from the Met Office also show that this year’s summer was sunnier than average with a total of 536.2 hours of sunshine.
It comes as the Met Office recorded the warmest summer on record for the UK, with a mean temperature for the three months of June, July and August of 16.1°C, one and a half degrees higher than the long-term metrological average.
Met Office climate scientists said the temperatures experienced this summer have been made around 70 times more likely because of human induced climate change.
Head of climate attribution Dr Mark McCarthy said: “Our analysis shows that the summer of 2025 has been made much more likely because of the greenhouse gases humans have released since the industrial revolution.
“In a natural climate, we could expect to see a summer like 2025 with an approximate return period of around 340 years, while in the current climate we could expect to see these sorts of summers roughly one in every five years.”
He added that higher temperatures were becoming the new normal.
“Our analysis suggests that while 2025 has set a new record, we could plausibly experience much hotter summers in our current and near-future climate and shows how what would have been seen as extremes in the past are becoming more common in our changing climate.”
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