Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, what information his Department holds on the number of sources from which data was gathered by the Meteorological Office to demonstrate that 1 July 2015 was the hottest July day recorded in the UK.

The Met Office used temperature data from its network of UK weather stations, together with historical temperature records it holds dating back to 1853, to demonstrate that 1 July 2015 was the hottest July day recorded in the UK.

These sources show that temperatures in excess of 35 °C were recorded at a handful of weather stations in London and the south east on 1 July 2015, including 36.7 °C at Heathrow airport, the highest temperature recorded by the Met Office on a July day. Temperatures also exceeded 30 °C across the Midlands, East Anglia and parts of north-west and north-east England. In these areas July temperature records were also broken at a number of weather stations with long running records.