Agreed. In 2017 I was in the states and experienced 40C for the first time. I ended up with heatstroke and it was awful felt so unwell. I’m under no illusion that this will be a big problem next week if we have same issue.

Will a new UK maximum temperature record be recorded this month? (The target to beat is 38.7°C which was recorded at Cambridge University Botanic Garden on 25th July 2019)

— TheWeatherOutlook (@TWOweather) July 11, 2022

I'm in Levisham box on Friday and Loughborough on Sunday. Luckily the latter is fairly well sheltered from the afternoon sun...but the wires are not. 

Sooner or later though, this country is going to have to properly invest in it's heat protection, whether it likes it or not. We need to stop using the "it's rare here" excuse and get on with it. Whilst they may only be brief usually, these intense heat spikes are happening near enough every summer now and it is only a matter of time until one really slams us (if it doesn't happen this time around, that is). I think there will have to be laws that make air conditioning mandatory in all public buildings, workplaces and transport carriages, capable of keeping the temperature inside at 21°C.

On the domestic level, I'd imagine by the end of this decade, air conditioning will become increasingly common in British homes. We may even see it installed in some new-builds before long.

What was the context of that tweet? Did the Beeb quote a figure from Kew Gardens?

Two weather stations in Yorkshire have closed (or have stopped reporting) in the past decade - Church Fenton and Linton-on-Ouse. Leeds is a city of 812,000 people and doesn’t have an official weather station anywhere in the city. 

It’s completely ridiculous how sparse weather station coverage has become. It’s basically impossible now for people in Leeds & York to get accurately weather data (Church Fenton worked well for both places).

It is true. And from the same article:

"Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs, said: "This is not a brave new world but a cowardly new world where we live in a country where we are frightened of the heat. It is not surprising that in snowflake Britain, the snowflakes are melting. Thankfully, most of us are not snowflakes."

I remember making a similar point years ago when I was more active on here. At a time when evidence of climate change is ever more valuable closing recording stations seemed destined (and designed?) to reduce data availability and therefore close down any room for challenge. In reality it was more likely to do with costs saving, but the end result is that we have less information available.

If I want to know what the temperature was in Leeds today I have to rely on Bingley (Samos), 13 miles away and 218 metres asl. Maximum there today 27.1C, which seems undercooked (pun intended).

Bingley Samos isn’t even representative of the town itself - it’s significantly higher up. Bingley town centre is around 80 metres asl. A very silly situation all round really.

A very warm 27°C today. About 6-7°C above average, but nothing out of the ordinary... yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj3o6dx9g1E

It's almost midnight here but the temperature here in Edinburgh at 11pm BST (22:00 UTC) tonight was still up at 20°C.

There is no chance of an official tropical night being recorded at Edinburgh Gogarbank as the temperature is slightly below 20°C there (the overnight minimum temperature needs to be above that in order for a tropical night to be recorded and officially, that should come from the 06z raw SYNOP data during the following morning as that is what will confirm the actual overnight minimum temperature, and not just the lowest hourly temperature reading).

However, the temperature at 11pm BST (22:00 UTC) was 20.4°C at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh which means that a tropical night is actually still possible there as I write, albeit very unlikely.

This is therefore probably the closest which I have ever come to actually recording a tropical night regardless of what actually happens during the rest of tonight and I reckon that there will be quite a number of places down south which may well be doing that tonight, especially in somewhere like Central London.

Manchester doesn't have one either. The closest is Rostherne No.2, but it's in rural Cheshire - not exactly representative of a major conurbation. And that's not to mention that the weather varies greatly across much of Greater Manchester. Oldham and Rochdale for instance, are much higher up than the city centre so are a lot cooler and wetter, but it doesn't get recorded.

In a lot of major cities, we're having to rely on PWSs which of course can be very inaccurate, depending on how they've been set up.

Still looking hot in SE Sunday to Tuesday

If I am reading it correctly some areas might be 24c or 25c on Tuesday morning at 6am, so not going to be a pleasant night for anyone without a/c

That was an uncomfortable night's sleep. Min 20.0c one of the warmest nights I have ever recorded. Not quite the 21c in 2019 but similar conditions in that it is cloudy as cooler air moves in .

On Wunderground a Central Leeds PWS hasn't been below 21.2c

I don’t think there were any official >20C minima, at least not from the synop network. Highest was Heathrow with 19.7C. 

Several Spanish sites didn’t get below 26C last night!

No tropical night here in Edinburgh as the temperature did eventually drop to below 20°C at all of my local stations here in Edinburgh.

However, the minimum temperature at Edinburgh Gogarbank was officially confirmed by this morning's 06z raw SYNOP data as 18.2°C.

For the other stations, I can only report the lowest actual temperature reading which was 18°C at Edinburgh Airport, 18.9°C at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh and 18.3°C at Swanston in the south of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh Gogarbank was been around in its current location since 2004 (previous to that, it was located in a different part of Edinburgh and officially named as Edinburgh Craighouse) and looking back at all of the records since then where all of the data has actually been available, the highest minimum temperature which I was able to find was 18.1°C on 6 August 2006.

There are a few instances where a higher minimum temperature has been shown, but those are for nights where there is a lot of missing data and on those occasions, there is therefore not enough data available to determine what the actual minimum temperature was.

As a result, those values have to be disregarded and so the highest minimum temperature which I have found which can be regarded as being valid is that figure of 18.1°C which I have just mentioned.

Since that is lower than last night's overnight minimum temperature, I can conclude from that, that last night may well have been our actual warmest night on record here in Edinburgh although this does not in any way, prove that this is actually the case.

Warmer again today.

20.0c has just been attained at 07.55; this time yesterday it was 17.0c.

Air-con of course cools one area at the expense of warming another, and additionally being a net energy consumer in the process so contributing, until green energy is widespread, to the overall warming of the planet. 

It would be better perhaps to return to the old-fashioned solutions of more massive construction with smaller windows