But rainfall – or the lack of it – is also a big story of the summer.
Provisional Met Office data shows that first 11 days of July brought most places less than 20% of their usual monthly rainfall.
A number of places have had no measurable wet weather for around three weeks or longer.
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No rain for 27 days: Wisley (Surrey)
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No rain for 25 days: Herstmonceux (East Sussex)
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No rain for 21 days: Cardington (Bedfordshire), Wittering (Cambridgeshire), Odiham (Hampshire), Heathrow (London)
For context, Wisley would expect to record 49.3mm (1.94in) of rain in a typical July, with Odiham seeing a monthly average of 50.8mm.
Most areas of Wales have seen less than 10% of the usual July average, and in Northern Ireland the figure varies from 1% to 20%.
The one major exception is north-west Scotland where most areas have seen 40% or more of their normal monthly rainfall.
Aultbea (Highland) has already had 95% of its typical rain for July, with over half of the month remaining.
At this point in the month sites would have expected to have received 35% of the months total rain.
