Looks like this sort of thread is warrented. As far as I'm aware (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong), we haven't reached 30C yet, which is quite odd given that summer so far hasn't exactly been cold. Its very likely we will reach 30C somewhere this week (probably thursday onwards), so a high temp thread seems appropiate. Incidently CAPE rises by the end of the week too, so we will probably see some more thunderstorm activity in the south and east.

Could have highish  temps until at least Saturday .With a change on Friday. May be precipitation on Friday.

A cold lover producing a heat-related thread, now that's a new one.

When I did my Cloud Master forecast this morning, I went for something like 25 C to 28 C widely across the South East (including Kent) as we wear onto the second half of this week. I should imagine a few favoured hot spots may just about touch 29 C or even 30 C at some point on Thursday or Friday but I guess it depends how quickly the Atlantic stuff does want to muscle back in again and it'll all be in the wind direction.
   And of course, we have to knock a few degrees off around south-facing coastal areas and towards the far East end of Kent and East Anglia. 

But for now, I never thought I'd find myself saying this but I'm glad that it does appear that Summer has finally caught on at this end after a dismal start to "High Summer".

Sometimes I can't fathom what GFS gets up to; the 00z run suddenly dropped todays maximum temperatures by a couple of degrees, yet the cloud was showing more signs of breaking up than expected, which implies higher maximums, not lower!

It's already past 20*C in Reading and back in West Hants, when both locations were predicted to take until 10am to reach 19*C 

Just spotted one of the largest maximum temperature errors I've ever seen; GFS predicted a high in the London area of 21*C today, yet that region reached around 25*C generally, and Heathrow climbed all the way to 26.5*C!

Looking at the cloud charts, GFS seemed to predict too much cloud cover building, which was then shown to take longer to melt away than has been observed.

Tomorrow looks to be a similar situation in terms of cloud building through the day - similar errors would put Heathrow at 29.5*C though and I'm not expecting it to turn out quite as hot as that that if I'm honest - that can wait until Thursday 

Great post - I've noticed this warm spell has been well underestimated.

I got 25C yesterday and 24C today which was at least 4C more than expected.

I always tend to find that the GFS tends to underestimate temps in summer when things are anticyclonic (and overestimate them on winter nights). To me the most important thing in determining temperature is the wind direction and also use 850hpas as a check.

Whenever the wind is in the SE, and things are not cyclonic there is a very good chance of seeing 30C.

https://max.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20140715/12/78/windvector.png

Originally the models had the winds veering SE by thursday, but its now been delayed by friday so I think that will be the hottest day. My predictions for maxima are as follows:

Wednesday: 26C

Thursday: 28C

Friday: 31C

Saturday: 28C (but not in the SE)

There is no sign of anything continental thereafter, so a very brief 'hot' spell. At least some thundery activity is likely (for those that like it).

Might as well have a bit of fun - for absolute maximums across the UK stations, attempting to apply adjustments for GFS underestimation, I can see a fair chance of 27*C tomorrow (basically today version 2), 30*C on Thursday, 32*C on Friday and 30*C on Saturday.

Of course, there's no way I'm revealing exactly what I consider a 'fair chance' to be 

It gets tricky given that I'm adjusting GFS maximums upward but still using the same cloud forecasts for loose guidance (just the large-scale features really - not the convective stuff, that's not going to be handled well).

As a footnote, if ECM verified for Saturday and then the sun made a decent appearance in the far SE, something in the range of 32-34*C wouldn't be out of the question. That requires a lot of things to fall in the right place, though!

My highest so far this year is 23.5c

Which is odd, because it's felt warm for weeks, and we've had some really fine weather - best summer since 2013 by this point of the year...

I have to ask - what about ECM, GEM and to a lesser extent UKMO? They look to either keep the heat largely in place (ECM and GEM) or bring it back quickly as tropical maritime air from the SW meets an easterly drift from the continent (UKMO based on where day 6 looks to be heading).

Your statement reflects GFS and JMA, though.

Bottom line is, what happens beyond the plume arriving is highly uncertain, and I suppose not really worth looking into much until the plume is arriving.

A long 48 hours ahead I reckon! 

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=10day;sess=

I'm not sure how Netweather calculate these 'feels like' temperatures exactly, though I know humidity plays a large part.

For those who miss this version that used the 18z data (i.e. most people...) the values are sensational - 29.4*C tomorrow, 30.6*C Thursday, 35.8*C Friday (highest I've ever seen predicted), 34.5*C Saturday, then an easing off to 24.2*C on Monday before the heat rebuilds and it feels like 30.9*C by next Wednesday 

Depending on what the GFS 00z comes up with, I may later today upload a saved snapshot of the outlook I'm talking about.

Good point, although we have North easteries rather than south easterlies. And 850hpas are only ~10C, to me thats high twenties rather than low thirties. To really get past that 30C barrior the air usually has to come from the near continent rather than scandanavia, and ofc in the event of a NErly, E costal counties including E anglia, Yorkshire, NE england and E scotland and possibly kent will see very low temps due to low cloud (looking at mid teens) wheras a few miles inland itl be easily above 25C.

There is no way that Saturday will be storm free.

But in any case the models are not exactly precluding it:

https://max.nwstatic.co.uk/gfsimages/gfs.20140715/18/96/ukcapeli.png

And with a trough sitting right across the UK in that stagnent warm air; looks reasonable.

30c in the UK feels hotter to me than 30c in Australia. 30c here feels very comforrtable indeed and is a good  outside activity day here, often with a fresh afternoon sea breeze.

30c in the Uk feels roasting to me and I need temps pushing 40c here to get that same feeling as in the UK when it is 30c.

Maybe partly because summer temps here between 30c and 35c are normal and I am used to it here, I don't know.

My parents who have spent a good few summers in Australia now also made the same comment last week. They say they suffer more in UK 30c style heat than in most of their time in Australia.

Here's that insane 'feelslike' temperature outlook I was talking about last night:

As you can see, Matty's comments are entirely accurate. I doubt that people stepping outside in Reading late on Friday night will find that it feels like 12.9*C, unless perhaps there is a torrent of rain to deal with.

Automated calculations, most likely.

I see 26.5c now at Heathrow with Gravesend & Northolt at 25.9c

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/with-hot-and-humid-weather-could-we-see-a-spanish-plume/

This is what the Met Office have to say about the imminent plume and thunder potential.

It's as level headed and non-commital as you'd expect 

Looks like we are topping out with 27C today. Tommorow will be a degree or so higher, and Friday even higher where 30C is likely to be breached.

Saturday looks a mess with some high temperatures combining with heavy thundery rain and showers.