UK winters are becoming warmer and wetter due to human-driven climate change. Long term data shows rising average temperatures and fewer cold weather extremes.
With global temperatures continuing to rise UK winters are now about 1C warmer than a century ago. The decade 2015–2024 has been 1.24C warmer than the 1961–1990 average. Indeed, six of the ten warmest UK winters on record have occurred since 2000.
Globally 2023 was the warmest year on record where most days in December broke temperature records.
Air and ground frosts have fallen by around 25% since the 1980s, and snow days are becoming increasingly rare across the UK.
A warming world means we are more likely to see winter precipitation fall as rain rather than snow, external.
However, even in a warming climate the UK can still experience spells of extreme cold. In 2018 the infamous Beast from the East brought severe wintry conditions to many parts of Europe leading to significant disruption, and its impact lingered well into meteorological spring.