It’s a bit bonkers isn’t it.

Its more thanks likely I fear. The heatwave warning system was put in place as a result of the 2003 heatwave. I can’t remember how many excess deaths there where.

The heatwave is so 2020.

It really is Tim. It feels balmy this evening. Crazy to think we may have another week of this 

I tweeted something along those lines earlier. Interesting thing is people are following ONS excess deaths very closely this year because of Covid, so a spike will be noticed (and probably put down to the virus). In 2003 I think we had a few thousand excess deaths. France famously had 30k+. 

If people are being isolated in their rooms in care homes for fear of contagion I can’t see that being great for health during a heatwave. 

Night temps do look high on the models. That’s the (literal) killer. 

MetOffice App - Heathrow.

Friday: 37C
Saturday: 37C
Sunday: 36C
Monday: 36C
Tuesday: 36C
Wednesday: 33C

Unbelievable. Dangerous. Astonishing.

Unprecedented. Never thought I’d ever see a forecast like that in the U.K.

 Yep, all of those words.

Yes... truly astonishing is all I can say!

Right click to enlarge.

It’s going to be a truly bizarre experience watching London bake in 36-37C heat for several days while up here we hover around 24-26C. Can’t even say that I’m mad, it looks genuinely awful.

I haven’t been able to find a maximum for 1 July 1976 so far but I guess the Met Office are correct. So 1976 in that case had two separate spells of three consecutive 35C days, and six in total in that case. 

It’s also worth mentioning that before this year, 36C had only been recorded on nine days since 1900. We’ve already had one this year and we could add another five in the coming week. 

And 6 of those occasions have been in the first twenty years of this century. Only happened 3 times in the last century (1911, 1932 and 1990).

Official max today was Wisley with 30.1C. So just scraped over!

I wonder how many there will be in a row, 1976 had 18 consecutive 30c plus days, be interesting how close this heartwave gets to that.

The last time I saw a week forecast like this was August 2003! and this could be even hotter averaged over the week.

Given 35C was apparently reached on 6 days in 1976, it does make me wonder - why were temperatures capped, six times, to within such a tiny range? The odds of exceeding 35 but not 36 for six days in an 8 day period must be vanishingly small.

Met Office automated forecast for here now has the heat moderating from midweek with max temps falling back to 25c from Wednesday. Here’s hoping!

Last Friday the Met Office app upgraded our forecast local temp several times during the day.  Early in the morning it was showing a max forecast of 31c but it gradually increased to 35c by early afternoon.  I actually recorded 35.5c, so at close range the Met O app was quite accurate, while the BBC and iPhone apps were less accurate.

At the moment the Met O app is forecasting a 30c max for today but I’ll be keeping an eye on it as I’m expecting it to go up again.  The other two apps are both saying a max of 29c. 

Ah, the ninja updates as I call it! A common occurrance here, last Friday went from a forecast of 24 on Thursday to something like 27 in the morning on Friday, then 34 by the end of the day.

It's not really the forecast updating on the day itself, btw, it's just reflecting the actual max (or interpolating it) as reported during the day.

Heathrow is going to have to see a phenomenal rise today to get anywhere near the record. Only 17.5C at 7am.

Having said that it seems in line with the hourly forecasts on the Met Office site. Only 29C forecast by noon with the highest figures coming late in the day, 4pm to 5pm. 

Do you have your trusty hourly tracker link so we can compare last week.

I’ll have a look when I am on the laptop.

I do have the hourly forecast from the Met Office link:

7am: 17 (actual 17.5)
8am: 19 (21.5)
9am: 22 (24.3)
10am: 24 (26.7)
11am: 27 (29.4)
12 noon: 29 (31.4)
1pm: 31
2pm: 33
3pm: 35
4pm: 36
5pm: 36

So well ahead of the forecast at 8am.

Langdon Bay 23.5C at 0800

Jersey AP 24.0C

Hourly LHR figures from all-time record day 25/7/19: https://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=03772&lang=en&decoded=yes&ndays=2&ano=2019&mes=07&day=26&hora=06 (LHR recorded 37.9C max)

And from 31/7/20: https://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=03772&lang=en&decoded=yes&ndays=2&ano=2020&mes=08&day=01&hora=06 (LHR max was 37.8C)

And from 10/8/03: https://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=03772&lang=en&decoded=yes&ndays=2&ano=2003&mes=08&day=11&hora=06 (LHR max was 37.9C)

Interesting that all 3 had maxima within 0.1C!

Remember that the times on those lists are UTC so add an hour to compare with BST hourly readings.

At 8am today Heathrow was 21.5C, compared with 23.0C in 2003, 23.3C last month and 24.0C in 2019. But a very long way to go yet!

Now I have to try and get on with some work and stop looking at temperature readings!

PS I am never sure why Jersey gets included in lists of UK temperatures. I know it's a British dependency but on that basis you may as well include Gibraltar!