Over the last two months the UK has experienced two heatwaves, which have shattered significant, long-standing temperature records.
This hasn’t happened since 1911.
And we’re still relatively early in the summer with our hottest weather normally coming in late July and into August.
While the current June heatwave will gradually come to an end over the weekend with a return to more average conditions next week, there are already indications that we could see more heatwaves this summer.
It has been a bit of a weather rollercoaster since May when a large area of high pressure – known as a ‘heat dome’ – sat across the UK bringing dry, sunny and very warm weather. A new May record temperature of 35.1C was set in Kew Gardens, London.
June – and the start of meteorological summer – then started on a wet and much cooler note with temperatures dropping to well below average.
Low pressure from the Atlantic brought a series of weather fronts with the whole of June’s rainfall in just the first half of the month.
Weather patterns shifted again and in a dramatic turnaround we’ve just experienced another intense heatwave with the June all-time temperature record broken.