Is it usually this warm in November?

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RRemember, remember the fifth of November – but feel free to forget your coat. And your hat. And your gloves. (And perhaps the outcome of the US election.) Temperatures remained a balmy 14 degrees in many parts of the UK this week.

And while Brits often love to celebrate anything remotely reminiscent of warm weather, it somehow doesn't feel quite… right this time of year. We have the start of the semester behind us, the scary season behind us and on the other hand we have even crossed campfire evening off the list. Now we are facing the inexorable slide towards Christmas.

'Tis the season for smug, healthy-looking women on Instagram celebrating the “cozy core” aesthetic: chunky knits and wool tights; handmade blankets; homemade root vegetable stews with roasted pumpkin seeds; Huge cups full of syrupy hot drinks topped with cream. It should be a time of fresh leaves underfoot and fresh air all around; For making your breath turn to mist and whipping a jaunty scarf around your neck.

But it's very hard to enjoy the truly tantalizing moments of fall when you arrive everywhere, as I am currently doing, red-faced, covered in a patina of sweat, and bangs sticking unsightly to your forehead.

It may not be a popular opinion, but I think I speak for all the constantly overheating cool weather fans when I say: That's enough, thank you. The mercury must fall so that balance can be restored to the universe (and I can wear cable-knit sweaters again).

I'm not the only one who feels red. “In Lancashire I haven't put on my outer coats yet and it's already November,” one social media user tweeted. “People ask me if I miss the Australian weather now that I live in the UK and I say, 'No, it's too hot and it's getting hotter.'”

Another commented: “The kids are all playing in shorts and t-shirts because it's 15°C on November 1st. We had colder days during the summer holidays! Absolutely ridiculous weather at the moment.”

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But is it really unusually warm this November? Or do we all just have a short, poor memory?

Dr. Simon Keeling, senior meteorologist at Weather Consultancy Services, said: “It is not unusual to have mild weather in early November. As fall turns into winter, we can often experience periods of warm and cold weather. The problem is that when cold weather comes, which it inevitably does, it is often quite a shock and we are not prepared for it.”

The current temperatures we're seeing are a good 10 degrees below the hottest November temperature on record, he adds; that was “22.4°C on November 1st 2015 in Trawsgoed in Ceredigion”.

Jim Dale, senior meteorologist at British Weather Services, has a slightly different view. “Where we are now, and have been for about two weeks, there has not yet been a daily maximum temperature record as such, but as we continue to have at least another ten days of the same synoptic profile, we are undoubtedly in a very difficult and unusual position Time,” he tells me. “The main consideration is nighttime temperatures. Despite the high air pressure and the normally expected cold nights with frost, as was almost always the case in the past, we are experiencing low temperatures that are far from the values ​​for gloves and scarves.” So that explains why I'm still in mine Summer pajamas sleep.

He points to the general warming we are experiencing with climate change: “It is undoubtedly a sign of the times we are in and the general influences that the record heat in the seas and oceans is having on our weather.” But like Keeling, he warns that temperatures are likely to drop soon, adding that “the weather models are certainly pointing in that direction.”

One of the reasons we're all so convinced that it's “too warm” for this time of year is because average fall temperatures have actually increased compared to when we were younger. The last three autumns in the UK, from 2021 to 2023, were three of the hottest on record. The average temperature in September, October and November last year was 10.76C, according to the Met Office, making it the sixth warmest autumn since records began in 1884.

“Overall, this has been another mild and wet autumn and this is consistent with the ongoing pattern emerging as our climate continues to change,” Mike Kendon, senior scientist at the Met Office, said at the time.

The previous two autumns were even warmer, with average temperatures of 11.05 °C recorded in 2022 and an average of 10.84 °C in 2021. With an average temperature of 11.35 °C, 2006 was the warmest autumn on record; In fact, the six warmest autumns have all occurred this century.

Meanwhile, average temperatures over the last decade (2009 to 2018) were 0.3°C warmer than the 1981-2010 period and 0.9°C warmer than the 1961-1990 period. All ten of the UK's warmest years have occurred since 2002; The 21st century has so far been warmer than the previous three centuries.

And we’d best get used to this “new normal.” The UK climate projections, which predict the country's future climate changes and the ways in which we may need to adapt, predict an increased likelihood of warmer, wetter winters; hotter, drier summers; and “an increase in the frequency and intensity of extremes.” The latest report modeled what could happen over the next 50 years based on different CO2 emissions and predicted that winter temperatures would rise by up to 3.8°C by 2070 under the “high emissions” scenario.

Sorry, fall lovers—it looks like delayed snuggling (and sweating in November) will unfortunately remain the order of the day for the foreseeable future.