Southend making a late move? At least that is now the 6th hottest day ever recorded outright

Do you still have it? Who was on Page 3? Asking for a friend

 Southend is not an official station, just an airport one. Shoeburyness is the official one round there but it's not a hot location. Still managed to hit 35C though....

Here you go:

(And Beast, no, I wasn't allowed to keep it and I wasn't interested in anything but the weather!)

AMAZING. Officially our 6th hottest day ever recorded.

The comments have already started lol. 

Earlier today on Twitter I had the lambast someone who was using a newspaper article from 1976 quoting the temperature on centre court in Wimbledon as to the reason it was hotter then.

They are obsessed with 1976. We almost need a heatwave of that length to shut these people up once and for all.

Friday 3rd August and I was on a Scout camp by the River Wye, not that far from Cheltenham where that temp was recorded. One issue - there was very little water in the river so we could only paddle! 

The last four days are all in the top 20 CET days ever recorded, with today likely to be second after 19th July 2022 and yesterday 6th.

The top 4 days have all been since 2019!

Although this has been a very hot historic week it hasn't been the "big one" I think 3 weeks of high 30s low 40s is possible maybe that would stop the 76 bollox.

However, I ventured out into the back garden a few minutes ago to see what it was like and it's still 36C with the westerly breeze feeling brutally hot - a very unusual sensation with the wind from that direction!

Absolutely. 

However I strongly suspect that the people making comments about 1976 are either bots, deliberately on the wind up or relative nut jobs. I've yet to meet anyone in real life who genuinely believes it was hotter back in 76 and that climate change is all a myth etc. 

I've met some who think it's not because of humans and plenty with opinions on how we should - or shouldn't tackle it; but that's a different thing.

What I don't understand is that they are happy to quote any and all temperature records from the past, however spurious, but think that all modern records "don't count" because they are on airfields or from "junk weather stations". I am sure if Mayflower Park was still around today it would be the subject of length blog posts about how crap it is.

36C here still. Like you, it seems, we have a wall of heat coming from the west.

John

Exactly. They also can’t grasp that many of these stations go back hundreds of years. There is a guy on Twitter that is going around calling all stations junk. It’s annoying me. 

Also, when I was looking at the top ten hottest days, I also looked at the top ten coldest, it was genuinely sad how old some of those records were and we may never see them broken again in our lifetimes.

I think I know who you mean, and if we got rid of all the records he calls junk then the past would be even more dramatically colder than today!

Just looking to see if there are any manual stations that could have gone higher today. East Bergholt coincidentally was the actual highest on the day it supposedly hit 40C at Wimbledon in 1976. If that is still going it might be worth a look.

Likewise Denver and especially Lingwood - although that is another like Brogdale that seems dormant since March.

East Bergholt seems to be another one that has quietly vanished from the network. Felsham might be the best bet for a high temperature today and is at least still reporting this month, albeit several days behind.

This is the current network https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-synoptic-and-climate-stations

There are apparently a few omitted - see comment on the Web page.

Edit: August first.

I mean some parts of the s/w had no rain whatsoever for 45 days so extreme after an extremely dry year before.

In fact a severe drought act was passed by parliament to ration water with use of local stand pipes the only source.

I think 76 remains special when compared to modern hot summers because imo only guys

1 exceptional heat ok that will be matched and beaten

2 extraordinary duration, nothing close so far to 76

3 severe drought nothing either matched to 76

4 as heat continued devastating wild forest fires broke out in England some 50 thousand trees lost in Devon alone

500 million of crops failed put that in real terms a 12 per cent increase in food prices.

The lasting effects of 76 still present as far forward to 2013 with massive changes to scrub and graze and damage still evident on many trees

1. Correct

2. Depends what you mean for duration- last year's whole summer beat 1976. The June-July heatwave was original, granted, in consecutive days > 30 or 32 and that will go, you'll see.

3. Drought and heatwave may be related, but are not necessarily fully interdependent. Our grass is greener than 2022, with no watering, yet we have these records. This is after all, a heatwave thread.

4. Idiot behaviour, poor forest management and other factors lead to fires. I stood in my local stamping grounds watching fire literally emerge from the peaty ground in 76, and it was, granted, horrific. Significant wildlife including large numbers of Dartford Warbler pairs were wiped out from their gorse homes and even at my age then I was in tears. But that doesn't make the year more exceptional.

5. I know- an addition. Third consecutive warmest spring on record, possibly yet another warmest June on record (3 out of 4- warmer than 76, and bearing in mind yes a great August akin to 1997 but otherwise summer 76 was really down to that infamous 2 week spell June-July)

I have nostalgically mused over 1976 for years, (actually decades) until the last few. I bought the book by Evelyn Cox. At the time, it was unprecedented. I don't doubt as Rob has said that if Mayflower Park were still going, we'd have seen something at least as spectacular on Thursday (almost did). And if the 76 set-up had occurred in today's greenhouse, who knows what might have happened? But we can't keep it a shrine forever. 40+ in 2022 is the new fear, I fear.

But the problem is these social media memes have an effect. They sow just enough doubt, just enough, even if readers suspect they're bots or ideologues. So it's important to rebut them strongly and publicly, not to convince them but to help the wavering 99% of readers who are not weather geeks.