Yes, I forgot about those record breaking temps in Italy last year. 

What I find most surprising is the fact that far interior of eastern Europe hasn't recorded even higher temps than those in the Med region. 

I think the Med benefits from being able to import short lived and extremely intense hot waves from the Sahara. Eastern Europe doesn’t have the same proximity to a really hot surface.

2 things to note about the forthcoming heatwave

1 As mentioned on the MO thread, this is going to be a spell of dry heat. Not high humidity. Here’s a typical DP map on one of the hottest days, next Wed

During August 2003 one of the killer features in France was high humidity. Not this time. Fire hazard though. Even in maritime Britain the only moderately high DPs are in the West Country and are transient.

This also means nights in the countryside will be relatively cool, but it allows for extreme diurnal heating. One of the reasons I think the daily maxima being shown are so high. And when it’s dry the UHI effect is at its peak. Already this evening we have temps in the early 20s in London and at my Kent vineyard it’s 9.9C.

2 It’s also quite a cloudy hot spell. Lots of cover on most of the hot days. A lot is high cloud which is why the surface temps will remain high. So the first proper day of the heat, tomorrow, could be the nicest day of the hot spell. A fresh start in the low teens, 28-29C in mid afternoon, that low humidity, and almost uninterrupted sunshine in the South, ie 15 hours+

Indeed, and these (hopefully) low dew points for France will be a comfort to them. A repeat of 2003 for them doesn't bear thinking about. 

What I enjoy about dry heat is the high diurnal range. A cool night and following morning after a hot day prepares one better for the next hot day ahead. Hot days followed by humid hot nights wears one down after a while (and in my case, a very short while). 

I would agree with you also that this high could be somewhat of a 'dirty' one. It is a maritime sourced so no doubt there will be the remnants of long deceased fronts contained within it, leading  to much high cloud as you say and perhaps even come coastal lower cloud at times, which would be very typical of anticyclonic weather in July really. 

Day 1 of the heatwave....let's get this party started !

I wonder if we can squeeze out a 30c (86f) somewhere today ? 

Looking at the forecast it doesn’t look like much of a heatwave for us, with only 2 days reaching high 20s. But that could still change I suppose. The Met Office say 22C today but it’s already above 20C with beautiful sunshine - they do have a tendency to underestimate max temps in these set ups so I can see is exceeding 30C on Monday or Tuesday next week. 

I remember August 2003 being a very SE-centred heatwave, whereas 1995, 2006, 2013, 2018, 2019 etc were all nationwide affairs with temperatures widely into the 30s even into Scotland. Will be interesting to see how this evolves.

It's the curse of the zonal heatwave that scorches the continent.

Old weather proverb: "when France is wracked with heat and drought, North of Derby won't get nowt"

But "when stormclouds fill the Italian sky, the highlands and pennines shall be warm and dry" 

It’s their version of North Sea gloom. 

Possibly also, 'When the Highlands are dry and bright,  Yorkshire and the NE is full of North Sea Sh**e."

I love these ancient proverbs that have been passed down through thousands of years. 🤣

They had a fantastic summer last year while the SE oozed with gloom and damp and all the vineyards got downy mildew. I think this spell will be pretty good for the NE though. More of an EW split than a NS one. 20C in Aberdeen and 22C in Bridlington as we speak.

Yeah -  whether it gets particularly hot or not remains to be seen but it looks sunny and dry for the foreseeable here. Can’t grumble. 

Today's shot-ranger simply says "Becoming hot" which is pretty unambiguous. Longer range not yet updated

Outlook for Sunday to Tuesday:

Fine, dry and very warm with plenty of sunshine for most regions. Becoming hot across central and southern areas. Cloudier and cooler in the northwest with rain possible at times.

Updated: 05:00 (UTC+1) on Fri 8 Jul 2022

Yesterday's official max from the Met Office is 26.5C at Kew Gardens although Leconfield reported a max of 27.7C with an hourly max of 26.5c. That seems to have been discounted. Leconfield was topping the charts quite a lot recently so perhaps there are some concerns over the reliability of the readings there?

Leconfield also seems to be ahead of the pack today with 23.3C at 10am (next highest is Bridlington with 22.5C) so perhaps there is something dodgy going on there?

It's annoying because it stops me seeing what's really the warmest location on xcweather. It's now at 26C...

A few 23s in there: Doncaster, Bridlington, Headcorn. My Pett Bottom station is showing 23.3C.

Must be 40 to 50% of ECM ensembles going for what would be record approaching heat between 17th and 19th.

Ogimet is quick to update with the hourly synops via this link: https://ogimet.com/ultimos_synops2.php?lang=en&estado=United+K&fmt=html&Send=Send

But you do have to manually decode them - for those that don't know it's the fourth block of numbers starting "10" that shows the temperature, eg 10216 at Heathrow is 21.6C.

I am fascinated by what has been showing up over the last week or so.

If it moves into the semi reliable time frame, which there is every chance it will do, we could be looking at one of the most interesting spells of weather for many years.

Look at the bottom graph on this link: https://apps.ecmwf.int/webapps/opencharts/products/opencharts_meteogram?base_time=202207080000&epsgram=classical_15d_with_climate&lat=51.4712&lon=-0.452714&station_name=Heathrow

The red line is the 99 percentile from climatology (basically a 1 in 100-year event for any given day). The fat part of the bar is the 75th percentile of the model run. So on the July 18th, the 75th percentile is about 3 degrees above the "1 in 100 year" level. Something like 35% of the model runs are above that level.

I have a strong feeling this time we will get the 40C jackpot after many attempts since 2015 onward, lot of members between 20-25C that something not to dismiss and very likely to happen. It way impossible for UK to miss out a heatwave when France had been baking hot since May.

In fact GFS seems to want to go for the sustained but not record breaking heat option. S England top temps from today 29, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 27, 28, 30, 33.

And zero precipitation up to 246h