Temperatures to hit mid-30s in heatwave

Temperatures over the coming days will remain lower than last month’s scorching 40C but the dry weather will continue over a “prolonged period”, the Met Office has said.

The whole of England and Wales is likely to see sunshine and dry conditions over the coming week as high pressure builds across the UK.

Northern Ireland and Scotland will be cloudier and breezier up to Wednesday before fine weather kicks in.

It comes after yesterday brought wall-to-wall sunshine for most of Britain, with a high of 28.1C recorded in Frittenden, Kent.

Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said yesterday: “It will be a lot of sunshine for a vast majority of the UK and also temperatures rising day after day.

“Not everyone will initially see those sunny conditions, but towards the end of the week even Scotland and Northern Ireland will join the rest of the UK in having generally fine, sunny and very warm if not hot conditions.

“It does look like a prolonged period of dry weather and obviously that’s bad news for southern England where some rain would really be useful now.

“In terms of temperatures we’re looking at them build from 28C or 29C tomorrow to the low to mid 30s from Thursday onwards, so a fairly widespread heatwave developing across the UK this week.

“The peak of the temperatures look likely to occur on Friday or Saturday.”

Mr Morgan said the West Midlands and West Country could see the highest temperatures, with a maximum of around 35C predicted, but added this was still uncertain.

He added: “The heatwave we saw at the end of July, that was relatively short-lived and saw exceptionally high, record-breakingly high temperatures.

“We’re quite confident temperatures will not go as high as they did during July, but the difference is that this is going to be quite a prolonged period of temperatures in the low 30s, so it will be very notable nonetheless.

“Heatwave criteria are likely to be met across many parts of the UK and there will no doubt be some adverse impacts from heatwave exhaustion, dehydration and so on, so we do anticipate some potentially adverse effects to the NHS and more vulnerable people having heat-related problems through this period of time.”

It comes after the environment secretary urged more water companies to impose hosepipe bans during an unusually dry August.

George Eustice said some firms have already “rightly” taken action to mitigate the effects of the prolonged dry weather as he encouraged others to follow suit.

His remarks, the first public intervention by ministers, signal possible restrictions on watering gardens, washing cars or filling pools with hosepipes for millions more people across southern England in the coming days.