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Jersey has its hottest summer on record

Meteorologists have confirmed that this summer in Jersey was the warmest on record.

The average temperature of 20.5°C is almost three degrees above the long-term average of 17.7.

The sea temperature in August was 19.7°C , one and a half degrees warmer than usual.

Senior meteorologist Robert Plummer says the records are usually broken by much smaller margins:

"You expect to go up mainly by something like 0.1 of a degree per decade or something, but in this case we've jumped up 0.9 degrees in just four years, from 2022 to 2026.

"We can't say from that that it's going to keep going at that rate, but you can see that if you did warm at that rate, we would just be heating up just insanely fast.

"There's nothing to tell us that that's exactly what's going to happen, but it's certainly quite alarming.

"When we had our hottest ever day, about 36.4 in Guernsey and 39.3 in Jersey, it didn't just shave a bit off the record; it smashed it.

"It's a little bit unsettling because we can't keep smashing records.

"We won't recognise the climate in a short amount of time if that happens; we just have to hope that it's a bit of a one-off, but time will tell."

The summer saw four heatwaves in four consecutive months.

One in eight Jersey heatwaves has happened this year

It was also the second sunniest since records began in 1894.

Last week, Jersey Water started up the desalination plant, after the heat saw reservoirs fall to 64%, compared to the ten-year average of 75%.

And the effects of the summer aren't over, with the utility company saying the island will need significant rainfall this autumn and winter to replenish stocks and avoid a more challenging summer in 2027.

More from Jersey News from Channel 103

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