The UK has experienced its hottest day on record, as provisional data showed the temperature soared to 40.3°C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire. This surpassed the previous record of 38.7°C set in Cambridge just three years previously. The unprecedented day followed a record warm night, when the 24-hour minimum temperature at Kenley in Surrey did not fall below 25.8°C, smashing the previous UK record by nearly two degrees.
As a historian of UK weather extremes and an expert in meteorological instruments, such records are of particular interest to me and other climate scientists. So what does a “new record temperature” actually mean, and what steps are taken to check its validity?
