Government draws link between good weather and small boat crossings – but they are rising during bad conditions too

Published

4 days ago

June 3, 2025

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A new Home Office report has linked the UK’s balmy start to 2025 to a dramatic rise in the number of small boat crossings when compared to the same period last year.

However, analysis by the Sky News data team shows that there has also been a big rise in crossings on days when the weather has been poor.

A record 11,074 people arrived in small boats before May this year, a rise of almost 50% compared with the same period last year.

According to the Home Office figures, 60 of those days this year were classed as “red days” – where Channel crossings are more likely because of good weather – compared with just 27 last year.

In a new report released today, the Home Office says that the doubling of red days from January to April 2025, compared with the same period in 2024, “coincides with small boat arrivals being 46% higher” over that period.

Our analysis, using similar criteria to the Home Office, but not attempting to directly replicate their methodology, agrees that there have been an unusually high number of days this year when the weather makes for good sailing conditions.

But it also shows that there are significantly more people making the crossing when the weather is not ideal – a rise of 30% on last year, and more than double compared with the year before.

We’ve classified the weather as being favourable on a day when, for several consecutive hours early in the morning, wave height, wind speed, rain and atmospheric pressure were all at levels the Met Office says typically contribute to good conditions for sailing. There’s more detail on our methodology lower down this page.

There is a clear link between better weather and more people arriving in the UK on small boats.

An average of 190 people per day have arrived so far this year when the weather has been fair, compared with 60 on days with less consistently good conditions.

But if we look just at the days when the weather is not so good, we can also see a clear and consistent rise in the numbers over time.

That average of 60 arrivals per “low viability” day is a rise of more than 30% on last year, and more than double the 24 that arrived on each similar day in 2023.

There are a range of reasons why more people could be crossing on bad weather days.

Smuggler tactics are changing, and Home Office data shows severely overcrowded boats are becoming more common.

In the year to April 2022, just 2% of boats had 60 or more people on board, compared with 47% in the year to April 2025.

In other words, in the space of three years, the number of boats with more than 60 on board has gone from 1 in 50 to every second boat.

Dr Peter Walsh, senior researcher at the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, told Sky News that a rise in demand due to geopolitical issues, like the situation in Afghanistan, may be a factor, but that it is interesting that illegal entries to the EU are down while they have risen in the UK.

What is the Home Office doing?

The current government has placed a major emphasis on disrupting the smuggler gang supply chains to restrict the number of boats and engines making it to the French coast.

Part of the problem is that French authorities are unable to intercept boats once they are already in the water, which is believed to have been exacerbated by good weather.

The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has confirmed the French government is reviewing its policies after she pressed for a law change that would allow police in France to apprehend migrants in shallow waters.

The Home Office released figures on Thursday that revealed France is intercepting fewer Channel migrants than ever before, despite signing a £480m deal with the UK to stop the crossings.

How are we defining good and bad days?

The Home Office says that its assessments of the likelihood of small boat crossings are passed to it by the Met Office.

“A Red, Amber, Green (RAG) daily crossing assessment is produced of the likelihood of small boat crossing activity based on the forecasted wave height and other environmental and non-environmental factors; such as rates of precipitation, surf conditions on beaches, wind speed and direction, open-source forecasts, and recent trends.”

We’ve not tried to replicate that methodology directly. But we’ve looked at Met Office categorisations for wave height, wind speed, atmospheric pressure and rain, four factors that each contribute to fair conditions for sailing in a small boat.

They say a wind speed of 5m/s is a “gentle breeze”. They classify precipitation as at least 0.1mm of rain per hour. If the “significant wave height” – the height of the highest one third of waves – is below 0.5m, they say that’s “smooth”.

Standard pressure at sea level is 1,013hPa, and high pressure “tends to lead to settled weather conditions” . We’ve set the minimum pressure at 1,015hPa, on the high side of standard, and used the thresholds listed above for the other metrics.

We’ve categorised a “high viability” day as one in which all four of those conditions were met in the Dover Strait for at least four consecutive hours, between 2am and 6am UK time.

A “low viability” day is where there is no more than one hour during which all those conditions were met. And “medium” is when the conditions are met for 2-3 hours.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

UK

Yellow warning for thunderstorms issued for large parts of England and Wales

Published

7 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Yellow warning for thunderstorms issued for large parts of England and Wales

A yellow warning for thunderstorms has been issued for large parts of England and Wales on Saturday.

The Met Office warning covers most of southern England, parts of the Midlands and most of south Wales between 9am until 6pm on Saturday.

People in the affected areas are being warned heavy showers and thunderstorms may lead to some disruption to transport services.

Find out the forecast for your area

Delays to train services are possible and some short-term losses of power are also likely.

The UK’s weather agency said 10 to 15mm of rain could fall in less than an hour, while some places could see 30 to 40mm of rain over several hours from successive showers and thunderstorms.

It has also warned of frequent lightning, hail and strong gusty winds.

Met Office Chief Meteorologist Dan Suri said most places in the warning areas will be hit by showers, although not all will see storms.

“In this case, it’s difficult to predict where exactly thunderstorms will hit because they are small and fast changing,” he said.

The wet weather comes days after the Met Office said the UK had its warmest spring on record – and its driest for 50 years.

Provisional figures showed spring temperatures surpassed the long-term average by 1.4C – with a mean temperature of 9.5C (49.1F). That beat the previous warmest spring recorded in 2024.

Temperature records were broken in all four nations in the UK – with 1.64C above the long-term average in Northern Ireland, 1.56C above average in Scotland, 1.39C in Wales and 1.35C in England.

In records dating back to 1884, the Met Office said eight of the 10 warmest springs had occurred since 2000 – and the three warmest had been since 2017, in a sign of the changing climate.

Conditions were also incredibly dry this spring, with an average of 128.2mm of rain falling in the UK across March, April and May – the lowest spring total since 1974, which saw 123.2mm.

UK

Body found in wooded area in search for missing teenager Cole Cooper

Published

8 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Body found in wooded area in search for missing teenager Cole Cooper

A body has been found in the search for a teenager who went missing in early May.

Cole Cooper, 19, was last seen by a school friend on Wednesday 7 May, in the village of Longcroft near Falkirk, in central Scotland.

Mr Cooper was reported missing by his family on Friday 9 May.

Police Scotland said the body was discovered in a wooded area near Kilsyth Road in Banknock on Friday afternoon.

“Formal identification has yet to take place however the family of missing man Cole Cooper, 19, has been informed,” the force said in a statement. “Enquiries remain ongoing to establish the full circumstances.”

Speaking to Sky News Breakfast earlier this week, his brother Connor said their family felt “lost” and described his sibling’s disappearance as “hell… for all of us”.

He described him going missing as “very much out of character” and that “even if his brother wanted some space or alone time” he would have notified family or friends beforehand – and would never “put his younger siblings through this”.

His mother Wendy Stewart described the situation as “total heartache” and was afraid he may have been “picked up by a car” and come to harm.

“Is it actually happening?” she said. “I have been wanting to wake up and it’s just been a big nightmare.”

After police got involved in the search, they visited more than 220 properties and trawled through around 1,000 hours of CCTV footage in a bid to find Mr Cooper.

Specialist resources from across the country were mobilised, including a helicopter and drones from the air support unit, as well as officers from the dive and marine unit.

The force previously indicated there was no suggestion of any criminality.

This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.

Please refresh the page for the latest version.

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UK

Bargain Hunt expert Oghenochuko Ojiri jailed after failing to report sale of artworks to ‘Hezbollah financier’

Published

9 hours ago

June 6, 2025

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Bargain Hunt expert Oghenochuko Ojiri jailed after failing to report sale of artworks to 'Hezbollah financier'

An expert on TV show Bargain Hunt has been jailed for two and a half years after failing to report the sale of artworks to a man suspected of financing Hezbollah.

Oghenochuko Ojiri, who has also appeared on another BBC programme Antiques Road Trip, sold around £140,000 worth of art to Nazem Ahmad over a 14-month period between October 2020 and December 2021, the Old Bailey heard.

Art dealer Ojiri, 53, who is known as Ochuko, admitted eight counts in May of failing to make a disclosure during the course of business within the regulated sector, contrary to section 21A of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Lebanese businessman and diamond dealer Ahmad was described in court as a “prominent financier” for Hezbollah, a proscribed terrorist group in the UK.

Prosecutor Lyndon Harris said Ahmad has an extensive art collection worth tens of millions of pounds, including works by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, many of which are displayed in his penthouse in Beirut.

Ojiri, who owned the Ramp Gallery, which was later renamed the Ojiri Gallery, sent a message to a contact saying, “I can’t risk selling directly to him,” after Ahmad was sanctioned in the US, the court heard.

But Mr Harris said “that’s exactly what he did” when he sold artworks, which were sent to Dubai, the UAE and Beirut.

Ojiri’s barrister Kevin Irwin said he was arrested on 18 April 2023 in Wrexham while filming a BBC show and his “humiliation is complete” as he appeared for sentencing.

Ahmad was sanctioned on the same day in the UK and officers later seized artworks held in two warehouses in the country, including a Picasso and a Warhol, valued at almost £1m.

‘Shameful fall from grace’

Sentencing Ojiri to two years and six months in prison, with an additional year on extended licence, the judge, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb, told him: “You knew about Ahmad’s suspected involvement in financing terrorism and the way the art market can be exploited by someone like him”.

She said Ojiri, from Brent, north London, viewed his offences as a “shameful fall from grace of a public personality and role model for those from an ethnic minority, in the arts and antique sector”.

“Your hard work, talent and charisma have brought you a great deal of success,” the judge said.

“You knew you shouldn’t be dealing with this man. I don’t accept you were naive, rather it benefitted you to close your eyes to what you believed he was.

“You knew it was your duty to alert the authorities but you elected to balance the financial profit and commercial success of your business against Ahmad’s dark side.”

Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter terrorism command, said the prosecution was the “first of its kind” and should serve as a warning to art dealers.

“Oghenochuko Ojiri wilfully obscured the fact he knew he was selling artwork to Nazem Ahmad, someone who has been sanctioned by the UK and US treasury and described as a funder of the proscribed terrorist group Hezbollah,” he said.