London is set for more sweltering weather after the UK saw its hottest-ever day in May on a scorching bank holiday Monday.
Temperatures at Kew Gardens reached 34.8C on Monday, surpassing the all-time record for May. The previous record of 33.3C was set in August 2019.
The mercury reached the high on a third consecutive day of 28C or higher in London, marking the beginning of a heatwave.
The hot weather is forecast to continue into Tuesday, and temperatures could push above 35C in parts of the capital.
Parts of central and southern England could even see highs of 36C.
Cooler weather is expected for the rest of the week, but London is still expected to see highs of 24C on Wednesday.
Amber heat health alerts are in place for London, the South East, the east of England, East Midlands and West Midlands.
The alerts, which will remain in place until 5pm on Wednesday, mean there is likely to be “a rise in deaths, particularly among those aged 65 and over or with health conditions” and increased demand on all health and social care services, according to the UKHSA website.
The provisional reading at Kew Gardens, south-west London, broke the highest May temperature that, until Monday, stood at 32.8C reached in 1922 and 1944, the Met Office said at around 5pm.
Temperature records are usually broken by just tenths of a degree.
It is also 10C to 15C hotter than average for much of the UK, the forecasters’ senior meteorologist Greg Dewhurst reported.
If validated, the latest record means seven of the 12 monthly highs have been set since 2003, the Met Office said.
It listed 12 locations where the record was topped on Monday, ranging from Suffolk to Berkshire to Warwickshire.
A previous study by the forecasters found breaking that record “is around three times more likely now in our current climate than it would have been in a natural climate not impacted by greenhouse gas emissions.”
This means that the once one-in-a-hundred year event is now a one-in-33 event, it said.
“We see these changes happening so much more dramatically,” Mr Dewhurst said on Monday morning, adding that climate change is boosting the heat.
“In the past, heatwaves built and built and built and built over days and days and days – these now just develop so quickly.
“It’s huge sort of swinging temperatures, and obviously records being broken by day and by night, so it just shows sort of how extreme the weather can change, and how quickly it can change, as well.”
As a result of climate change, all meteorological models are predicting “more extreme heat, more extreme weather events” and “hotter, drier summers – wetter, windier winters”, he added.
