The BBC informed the nation this morning that “last month was the hottest month on record globally as well as in the UK.” Today Programme listeners heard:

The trouble is that’s not what the EU funded Copernicus climate bulletin the BBC cited actually says. It does say that globally May was the warmest May in their data record, it also says “May was colder than average for Europe”. The BBC seems to have invented their claim about the UK from thin air…

In reality, the Met Office tracks monthly temperature in the UK. Users can see that there have been five Mays on record with a higher “Mean daily maximum temp”, and a full fifteen Mays with a higher Mean temperature. Pretty shoddy from the Beeb…