The UK mean temperature for Spring 2007 was 9.0 °C, beating the previous record of 8.8 °C set in 1945.

The warm UK spring follows one of the warmest recorded winters, and a run of record breaking years – the last five years are the warmest on record.

Globally, the Met Office has revealed figures showing that the mean global temperature for the period January to April was almost 0.5 °C above the long-term average.

However, earlier this year meteorologists predicted a 60% probability of 2007 being the warmest on record, with a mean temperature 0.54 °C above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14 °C.

David Parker, a climate variability scientist at the Met Office Hadley Centre said: “A cool La Nina event developing in the equatorial Pacific could prevent 2007 from being the warmest ever year”.