Yes its ridiculous West Country 40s were always very unlikely.  The Storms have caught all the models out though.  Hammering down here as I type. But at least it's interesting weather.

I think you're forgetting three things there: 1) the sun is as strong as it gets in this country = high levels of evaporation, 2) it's summer and everything is growing like crazy = high levels of evapotranspiration, 3) the airmass is incredibly hot and under a high pressure ridge tends to dry out as the air descends = even more evaporation.

I daresay by the end of today it'll be baked dry again in areas that are exposed to the sun. And areas like my garden that are protected by a couple of layers of tree and shrub canopy? They'll stay damp today and probably tomorrow, but even they'll be dry again by Thursday.

Can always rely on you to be the voice of reason Darren. I really shouldn’t let the weather annoy me. I think I’ve woken up grumpy, I’ve never been annoyed at a thunderstorm. Ironically Friday is now looking at the hottest day!

Here just dampened the ground then dry out but still can’t get high temps now due to other areas got very wet will tamper the temperatures from going so high.   

Moomin did your sockets not fry your appliances?  I had my dad old window 98 computer motherboard fried despite it was off but still plugged in while mine was unplugged.  This happened during violent ball lightning and hit a house next street so the current surge travel here.

32 today, then 32, 33 and 32 Friday.  Oh well the app and been spot on refusing to allow high temps or sunny weather.  Will put my thermometer out today to see if the app 32c or models 37 to. 38c is correct. 

Heh, yes - Friday is now showing 38C here on the MetO raw, and I'm dreading it. The next three days (31/33/31) will be bad enough, but I'm still wondering how we'll reach 33 especially given an onshore breeze! One thing that all this rain here will have done is raise the humidity even more... don't come to Sheppey for the next few days, I think people will stink of BO and sweat. 😂

FWIW this is the 12h accumulated precipitation via the NW radar; it's overstated things slightly here and I suspect will have done elsewhere too. The broad swathe of torrential rain is easily visible, especially over London, but you don't have to go far north or south to find areas which are largely or even completely dry. Don't forget too, with baked ground much of the rain will have run straight off into our streams, rivers and drains... it's not like in winter where the ground is soggy and the water just hangs around for days.

https://ukwct.org.uk/weather/12h.jpg 

For those further East Friday looks the day as the heat gets pushed that way and the west moderates to a mere 30.

The Storms were forecast on the charts but little mention on the TV weather forecast .

The cooling effect from the heavy rain will be marginal as the storms are isolated area wise in quantities of rain and the air mass is so hot in the first place.

My app for London was correct for thunderstorms but no mention on the forecasts.  Just read in the SE thread and one picture show lighting over Hoo.  Lot of red echoes on the radar.  All this started from the SW which models are kept insisting it will be the hottest place need to cancel it out now. 

In fact compared to yesterday’s 03Z it is almost 10C cooler in some northern areas. The heat zone is far smaller. 

Yes  lots of cloud here too, and storms still bubbling up

 I'd be surprised if London got to 33c today tbh. Maybe further west will go higher but the June record looks safe today.

Tue: 34C

Wed: 37C

Thu: 40C

Fri: 38C

Sat: 33C

Quite a lot of altocumulus castellanus here, the sort you normally see at the end of a hot day, not the start of one. Doesn’t bode well for reaching 35 although the date record should be a cert (a mere 32.2C in 1976).

That looks very optimistic now. My punt would be a high of 37c now.

Satellite shows the clouds over the SE heading off to the east quite rapidly but there is a new patch of convection bubbling up just south of Bristol as well which looks like it will be heading east along the Thames Valley. 

From Meltdown Monday we have gone to Mild Monday and Tepid Tuesday… then Washout Wednesday?

Yes that the problem with models nowadays is so unreliable and worst performance than in the past.  I wonder which model the app was using that refusing to show high temps, sunny and dry?  Even for London I saw they put thunderstorm symbol yesterday which in reality it came off this morning.  My dad told me they had storms at 5am in Letchworth, nothing here but lot of clouds left behind.  Won't be sunny today for sure so lost interest now time to look for another one that can be done properly like last month better quality sunny heatwave was.  Just once things go wrong the wrongness will continue and won't correct it back.

The iPhone app uses the IBM model I believe and also feeds in radar information for real time rain predictions. 

But it is clearly not infallible either as it shows full sun all day here when in reality the sky is very moody. 

I agree, the massive storm in London and the SE was completely unforecast.  The last 30hrs have been so poor from the majority of all models perhaps except the UKV, but even that has overestimated temps.

It will be a hotter day for all of us in the UK on Tuesday.

Across northern England and Wales it will get to 28 to 30C (86F), but for the Midlands, eastern and southern England, temperatures will widely exceed 33C.

In some locations around the south Midlands towards Greater London, the mercury is expected to peak at about 36 or 37C.

This will comfortably exceed the current June temperature record of 35.6C set in 1976.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0ryvlxpg7rt?post=asset%3Ae730fcb0-b1e0-4907-8a05-c083b25712fe#post