The exact high today is 35.2C in St. Helier, Channel Islands

Back on the mainland we had

Brize Norton, Oxfordshire: 33.5C
Pershore, Worcestershire: 33.4C
Heathrow Airport, London: 33.2C

Still above 28c  here and humidity levels rising.

think about this way...

It was wise and correct for the metoffice to come out and say 35C was possible for some, and certainly for some it will have been. Just because one of their scarcely placed 'official' stations didn't record 35C that's not say in big towns & cities these temps where not reached. With these sorts of very high temperatures there is indeed a risk to health, and they have a duty as the national weather service to inform of those of the risk.

Got to a high of 33c at 5.21pm still 27.9c @ 8.50pm (Watford)

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And we still have tonight to get through .....

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26c here at 9pm at night, superb! Dp 19c

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Got a reading of 24.8*C just now. A bit windy too, feels bizarre as the light levels drop away.

Brings back fond memories of that crazy late Sep-early Oct spell of 2011 that saw high 20s here and holding on in the mid-20s even when the sun was low in the sky.

But for obvious reasons, tonight is bound to stay warmer than seen back then... Too much so perhaps!

In general the models show partial cloud cover keeping temps in the 21-23*C range up to around 6am tomorrow for these parts. Then, fresher air moves across and drops temps into the high teens, before the sun gets to work and temps shoot back up to the mid-high 20s.

Northeast of somewhere around Salisbury, however, that freshening up is not expected to arrive before the sun does... So temps there probably won't get below 20 or so. Good luck with the sleep, folks!

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The temperature fell back to  23.9 here but has risen to 24.6 in the past hour since the sun was setting.  Wind has edged more East than north east so combine that with the upper air peak and that explains it I guess.  Could I be headed for my first +20c minima in 11 years?

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AROME did really well as it turns out!

Respect for the french model

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22:20, 24.6*C. Almost no cooling off in the gusty SE wind.

Partial cloud - mostly AC Cas which makes for a great look to the night sky.

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26.2C here but it keeps yoyoing - what is happening is the wind is picking up heat from still warm pockets I think and mixing with cooler, and this is why it's up and down.

Nothing exceptional here, as always, but we've finally manage to record a higher temperature than Greenland managed. Max: 25.0C and min: 13.8C.

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Landed at quarter past 10. A tad disappointed to see it had already dropped to 25C, and didn't feel night-oven like. But as dewpoints keep rising I'm hopeful it'll be a proper 22C blockbuster tonight.

The all time record is 23.9C at Brighton during that 1990 heatwave. I think that one's going to be tricky to beat but we could get a 23C somewhere.

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Down to a parky 24C at Heathrow. Get the woollens out. Record looking off the table already.

This is like watching those early results from Sunderland and Hartlepool coming in. Writing's on the wall.

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still warmer official spots then that...

But in the towns and cities it's considerably warmer for most and this I think is what the metoffice are talking about with the very warm overnight temperatures - most don't live in the countryside or at airfields.

Le Harve reported 29*C at 22:30 so the source is still roasting even at this hour... I guess the big deal is that the temperature should barely drop, if at all, between now and dawn, due to the brisk wind, cloud cover, and well-embedded heat plume.

I took a measurement at 23:00 and it was still 24.6*C - no drop from my 22:20 reading, and well in line with Hurn's 22:50 report.

Amazing really how proximity to the sea kept that place 4*C cooler yesterday, yet has had no real impact on today's maximums (same at Hurn as at Boscombe Down for example; 31.6*C). Sure, the hotter temperatures over France helped with that, but it seems that a SE wind off the stretch of The Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland is even more different to a S wind from the heart of the Channel than I ever imagined.

Anyway, it now seems to be proximity to France that's dominating the air temps - as if the hot air is gliding over the sea with very little mixing out until it meets the much more uneven land. Fascinating stuff.

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It's 24.6C in Leeds city centre and 23.2C in the suburbs. The BBC think the low will be 21C here, but I very much doubt this will happen unless the temperature decline is arrested. Even during hot spells of the past, like August 1990, we never had a low above 20C - even on that day when it reached 34.4C. Just a very hard task here.

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Just did the numbers on today's maximum.

It was the hottest day here in precisely 10 years; since 19th July 2016 which saw 35*C. How weird is that?

The period 2000-2006 only produced four other days that were hotter; 19th June 2005 (the number 19 again...) , 9th and 10th August 2003 (well duh) and 15th July 2003 (only four days out of alignment...).

 

So - in a summer that has otherwise been rather lackluster thus far (though not exactly tragic in July) - the 6th highest temperature of the past 16 years has occurred.

2005 also saw its very high temperature follow on from a mediocre period - but being a month earlier, the psychological effect was less pronounced, and as it happens, the rest of the summer turned out to be very decent.

 

Oh lordy it's hot in here. Easily into the 30s. Glad I moved my PC out of my room so I can have the window wide open in there with the lights off!

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