2014 On Course To Be Britain's Hottest Ever Year Since Records Began

2014 is set officially become Britain's hottest year in history, thanks to global warming "substantially increasing" the chances of new temperature highs, weather experts have said.

The UK's average temperature is expected to be 9.9C this year - the warmest in records that date back to 1910 and beating the previous highest of 9.7C set in 2006, according to the Met Office.

It means that the UK's top eight warmest years have been recorded since 2002.

It might be hard to remember amid these freezing temperatures but this summer was the warmest recorded in seven years.

2014 is also set to be the hottest on record in the Central England Temperature (CET) series, which has recorded temperatures in an area of England since 1659 and is the longest-running record of instrumental temperature measurements in the world.

By that measure, the average temperature is expected to be 11C, which would beat the previous record of 10.9C set in 2006.

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The Met Office said that while there had been no "record-breaking" individual months for temperatures, every month, except August, had been warmer than average.

A spokesman said: "Although individual months were unremarkable, it was the persistence of the warmth that was unusual and together they add up to something record-breaking.

"Human influence on the climate is likely to have substantially increased the chance of breaking the UK and CET temperature records.

It's a distant memory but this is what summer this year looked like

"Estimates from the Met Office suggest that it has become about 10 times more likely for the UK record to be broken as a result of human influence on the climate."

The Met Office used temperature figures from January to December 28, and assumed average weather conditions for the final three days of the year.

It has also been notably wet in 2014, after the UK recorded its fifth wettest year since records dating back to 1910.

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Some 50.8in of rain fell up to December 28 - just 0.2in short of the fourth wettest year in 2008 but with three days of the year remaining.

The Met Office said the winter of 2013/2014 was the UK's wettest in records since 1910, and in the long-running England and Wales precipitation series from 1766.

May, August, October and November were also wetter than average, while August was especially wet in northern Scotland.

The remaining months were mostly drier than average, with September the driest on record since 1910 with just 22.1mm of rain.

Gravesend in Kent recorded the UK's highest temperature of the year after the mercury soared to 32.3C on July 18.

Cromdale, in Moray, Scotland saw the lowest temperature of -9C on December 27. However the Met Office said this was "unusually mild" as temperatures usually fall below -10 °C and often -15 °C.

The highest wind of 109mph was recorded at the Needles, Old Battery, on the Isle of Wight, on February 14.

Meanwhile, Ennerdale in Cumbria saw the UK's wettest day in 2014 after 5.78in of rain fell on March 6.