Britain looks set to be graced by soaring temperatures just in time for the school holidays. According to one weather forecaster, the mercury could hit 35C later this month.
Brian Gaze, a forecaster at Weather Outlook, admitted he would not be surprised to see temperatures his 35C, although the Met Office predicts the weather will more likely be 30C. Most schools in England and Wales will be splitting up by July 22 - and that is just in time for the heatwave.
Brian told The Sun: “At the moment, long-range computer models are suggesting an increased likelihood of very warm conditions during the last third of July. With parts of southern Europe experiencing extreme heat during the early part of the summer, there is the potential for the UK to import some of that if the pressure blocks across Europe and the North Atlantic fall into the right places.
“Temperatures in the UK reached 32.7C earlier this month and typically the hottest weather of the summer comes in July or August. In recent years periods of extreme heat have become more common in the UK.
"I wouldn't be surprised if temperatures climbed to 35C (91F). To put a little context on that, the hottest day in the entire decade of the 1980s was 34.4C.”
Martin Bowles, senior meteorologist at the Met Office, similarly predicts hot spells for the school holidays. He said: "The further ahead you go, the more uncertain it is.
"But looking at the second half of July, around the start of the school holidays, it does look as if the most likely weather across the UK is settled and warm. There are good signals for dry, sunny and warm weather.
"Temperatures will be above average in the South – very warm or even hot at times. The general outlook is for it to be high 20s with a chance of it reaching 30 in one or two spots. In July we do sometimes get temperatures in the 30s, but there's no indication temperatures are likely to be higher than the upper 20s."
The highest ever UK temperature was 38.7C, recorded in Cambridge on July 25, 2019, beating the previous record of 38.5C in Faversham in August 2003.
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