You might want to start getting used to the idea of 40°C heat in the UK—because according to a new Met Office study, it’s becoming less of a freak occurrence and more of a recurring nightmare. Yes, I know, climate change, yawn, fake news, “it was hotter in 1976”, etc. But before you finish typing “scaremongering” in the comments, allow me to explain—with facts, not what a bloke in a foil hat and a YouTube account thinks.

What the Met Office is Saying (And Why You Should Care)

The Met Office has just published a study in the Weather journal with the cheerful title: ‘Rapidly Increasing Chance of Record UK Summer Temperatures.’ It lays out how the odds of 40°C+ temperatures in the UK have gone from vanishingly small to unsettlingly likely.

In the 1960s, the chance of a 40°C day in the UK was basically zero. Think Elvis on a 2025 comeback tour likely. By 2023, it had jumped to around 4%. That’s over 20 times more likely than it was in the flower power era when, according sources distorted by LSD, everyone loved each other, regardless of the weather. According to lead scientist Dr Gillian Kay, we now face a 50/50 chance of another 40°C scorcher within the next 12 years.

Remember 2022? That Was Just the Warm-Up

In case you’ve mentally blocked it out, July 2022 was the first time the UK officially broke the 40°C barrier—40.3°C in Coningsby, Lincolnshire, to be precise. The country promptly set itself on fire, trains gave up, roads melted, and anything involving effort or electricity stopped working. It was part of the hottest European summer on record—and it’s now clear that this wasn’t a freak one-off.

UNSEEN, Not Untrue

The researchers used a method called UNSEEN, which creates loads of plausible climate futures based on where we are right now. It’s like running thousands of weather simulations and seeing which way the roulette ball keeps landing. And the ball’s landing in the fiery-red section a lot more often than it used to.

Dr Nick Dunstone, another Met Office scientist, points out that the legendary summer of 1976—often dragged out in climate denial arguments—had around two weeks of temperatures over 28°C in southeast England. That kind of heatwave could now last a month or more and frankly, isn’t uncommon anymore. That’s a lot of warm beer, petty domestic arguments, and regret about not getting those blackout blinds that are now sold out.

It’s Not Just the Heat – It’s the Consequences

This isn’t just about being a bit sweaty. Heatwaves come with real consequences: public health risks, buckled infrastructure, wildfires, and the general collapse of anything that’s not built to survive inside a greenhouse, including an increasingly the heat niggly author of this post. The study emphasises that planning needs to start now—not in some theoretical future where we all live underground and drink desalinated seawater.

The UK government’s Climate Adaptation Research and Innovation Framework backs this up, urging investment in understanding climate extremes and preparing for them across all sectors. Because as much as we all love a good moan about the weather, this is beyond moaning territory, even if that populist halfwit, Farage, thinks he knows better.

In Conclusion: Sunhats and Science, Not Shrugs

Yes, it’s easy to roll your eyes and pretend you know your stuff. “Didn’t snow in March?” “It’s summer, get over it.” But science doesn’t run on your Facebook memories of when it snowed or what your knees tell you about the incoming rain. This is the Met Office—the people whose job it is to monitor, model, and predict our climate. They’re not here to win arguments online and create panic. They’re here to warn us before the tarmac turns into lava.

So the next time someone brings up 1976 like it was biblical prophecy, maybe direct them to the Met Office’s work instead. Or just hand them a sunhat and an a bottle of mineral water. They’re going to need both.