The past year has been the second warmest on record, the Met Office said, despite the summer being disappointingly cool.

It said provisional figures show that only 2006, with an average temperature of 49.5F (9.73C) was warmer than 2011's average temperature of 49.3F (9.62C).

Unusually warm autumn and spring temperatures meant that apart from January, which endured the knock-on from the cold December in 2010, the only other months that had below-average temperatures were June, July and August.

Stephen Davenport, senior meteorologist at MeteoGroup, the Press Association's weather division, corroborated the statistics and said 2011 had been a "peculiar" year, including the second warmest November on record.

"We have seen a relatively cool summer sandwiched between a warm spring and autumn," he said.

"There were only four months with below-average temperatures and one of them was January."

The warmest temperature recorded this year was 91.5F (33.1C) on June 27 in Kent.