Londoners were on Tuesday sweltering in a record-breaking heatwave with temperatures predicted to top 40C — after the hottest night in history.
Millions suffered disturbed sleep with temperatures staying above 25C. The heat was predicted to reach a historic high of 41C in some areas, ahead of another roasting night.
As Network Rail closed King’s Cross station and issued a “do not travel” warning, Tube services were again axed or faced “severe delays” and emergency services were prepared for more Londoners succumbing to the extreme heat. In key developments:
- An increased number of schools were closed, including some that had pledged to remain open, after temperatures reached 42C in classrooms. Many were sending pupils home early.
- Train services across the country were again disrupted, with most Thameslink and Great Northern services in London cancelled. LNER did not run trains from York to King’s Cross.
- Transport Secretary Grant Shapps admitted it would take “decades” to upgrade the UK’s rail and road network so it could cope with extreme weather.
- Police resumed a search for a 14-year-old boy believed drowned in the Thames. He had been seen entering the water on Monday afternoon at Tagg’s Island in East Molesey, near Hampton Court. Temperatures on Monday were the hottest of the year but fell just short of a new record.
They peaked at 38.1C in Santon Downham, Suffolk, the Met Office said — the third hottest day on record, after 38.7C in Cambridge in 2019 and 38.5C in Faversham, Kent, in 2003.
But forecasters said the record for the UK’s hottest day was set to be smashed on Tuesday, with the temperature set to reach 40C in London and 41C in central or eastern England.
Met Office forecaster Rachel Ayers said conditions would be “pretty unprecedented”. She added: “The temperature will be very hot throughout the day, before rising as high as 40C, maybe even 41C in isolated spots across England during the afternoon.”
Parts of England around Boston in Lincolnshire and Hull, East Yorkshire were forecast to be the hottest. A high of 41C would make the country hotter than Jamaica, the Maldives and Barbados. But last night was the warmest on record, with Kenley, in the borough of Croydon, among the hottest places in the country at 25.8C. Residents in Emley Moor, near Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, endured a night where the temperature failed to drop below 25.9C. This surpassed the 23.9C, recorded in Brighton on August 3, 1990.
The heatwave is set to come crashing to an end tomorrow, with cooler temperatures and the Met Office issuing a yellow warning for possible thunderstorms from 1pm.
London Ambulance Service said it received 6,600 emergency calls on Monday, including an increase in people fainting or suffering from heat exposure in the afternoon.
Transport for London said there were 10 per cent fewer passengers on the Tube on Monday morning, with a bigger overall drop over the entire day expected when final numbers are collated.
The Hammersmith and City line was closed for a second day. There were “severe delays” on the Central, District and Metropolitan lines.
The London Overground was suspended between Willesden Junction and Richmond and there was no service this morning between Gospel Oak and the new station at Barking Riverside because of a broken down train.
Thameslink and Great Northern trains were cancelled out of the capital for the entire day, with only limited Avanti West Coast and West Midlands Railway trains out of Euston and Chilterns Railway services from Marylebone. The East Coast mainline was closed between London and Yorkshire.
Rails near Vauxhall station were discovered to have warped and were being painted white to reflect the heat — trackside temperatures hit 48C, according to Network Rail. The cable car across the Thames was suspended on Monday afternoon due to the heat.
Mr Shapps told LBC: “In the UK we are about to have probably today the hottest ever recorded temperature and, put simply, our rail infrastructure — the country’s infrastructure — wasn’t built to withstand 40C, because we haven’t seen it before.
“We are clearly going to have to ensure that kind of standard of infrastructure is put in for the future, because we are going to see more of this happening.”
Ahead of the record temperature, the Met Office had already issued a red extreme heat warning covering much of central, northern, and South-East England. The extreme warning, indicating a threat to life, was in place in an area stretching between London, Manchester and York.
Thermometers were reading 35.1C at Kew Gardens at 10am. Monks Wood in Huntingdon, Cambridge, reached 34.3C, while Caernarfon airport in Snowdonia climbed to 33C.
Network Rail said temperatures on the rails can rise to 20C higher than air temperature, sometimes causing them to “expand, bend and break”.
The operator tweeted: “Our hottest rail recorded yesterday was 62C, in Suffolk! Rail temperature can be about 20C higher than air temperature, causing it to expand, bend and break.”
Mr Shapps said issues on the rails and roads would continue for decades during extreme heatwaves.
Asked how long it would take to upgrade existing rail infrastructure to be more resilient, he told Sky News: “Decades, actually, to replace it all.Ditto with tarmac on the roads. There’s a long process of replacing it and upgrading it to withstand temperatures, either very hot or sometimes much colder than we’ve been used to, and these are the impacts of global warming.”
He urged people to “apply common sense” and “depending on the nature of your journey and reason for it you might want to consider rearranging your day around it”.
Meanwhile, road congestion in several cities was down on last week, figures showed, as people avoided travelling in the heat.
In London levels dropped from 60 per cent to 44 per cent and in Manchester they decreased from 59 per cent to 44 per cent, location technology firm TomTom said.
Water companies in southern and eastern England have warned that increased demand was leading to low pressure and even interrupted supply.
Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers’ Union, said the temperatures were “really highlighting issues with water security”.
