I think you're right! The Met Office helpfully tweeted this earlier:

Spells of 35C or 36C for 3 or more days in a row doesn't happen very often:

🗓️ 26-28 June 1976
🗓️ 1-3 July 1976
🗓️ 2-4 Aug 1990

https://twitter.com/metoffice/status/1291359210752675841

 

I haven’t been able to find a maximum for 1 July 1976 so far but I guess the Met Office are correct. So 1976 in that case had two separate spells of three consecutive 35C days, and six in total in that case. 

 

It’s also worth mentioning that before this year, 36C had only been recorded on nine days since 1900. We’ve already had one this year and we could add another five in the coming week. 

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I haven’t been able to find a maximum for 1 July 1976 so far but I guess the Met Office are correct. So 1976 in that case had two separate spells of three consecutive 35C days, and six in total in that case. 

 

It’s also worth mentioning that before this year, 36C had only been recorded on nine days since 1900. We’ve already had one this year and we could add another five in the coming week. 

And 6 of those occasions have been in the first twenty years of this century. Only happened 3 times in the last century (1911, 1932 and 1990).

So, first day of the heatwave. 3 places got to a rounded 30C. Northolt, St J’s P and Heathrow. I dearly hope at least one of them (or another manual station) managed over 30.0C.

How many 30+ days can we string together? Models imply anything from 6 to 9.

Official max today was Wisley with 30.1C. So just scraped over!

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Official max today was Wisley with 30.1C. So just scraped over!

 

I wonder how many there will be in a row, 1976 had 18 consecutive 30c plus days, be interesting how close this heartwave gets to that.

 

The last time I saw a week forecast like this was August 2003! and this could be even hotter averaged over the week.

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It’s also worth mentioning that before this year, 36C had only been recorded on nine days since 1900. We’ve already had one this year and we could add another five in the coming week. 

Given 35C was apparently reached on 6 days in 1976, it does make me wonder - why were temperatures capped, six times, to within such a tiny range? The odds of exceeding 35 but not 36 for six days in an 8 day period must be vanishingly small.

 

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Met Office automated forecast for here now has the heat moderating from midweek with max temps falling back to 25c from Wednesday. Here’s hoping!

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GFS 0z moderates the heat slightly throughout the next few days. It’s certainly not as hot as the 12z yesterday.

Annoyingly the Arome has the max today at 36C so it remains to be seen if we will get the fourth hottest day.

Tomorrow surprisingly only has maxes of 33C. Hot, still but less than I was expecting.

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Last Friday the Met Office app upgraded our forecast local temp several times during the day.  Early in the morning it was showing a max forecast of 31c but it gradually increased to 35c by early afternoon.  I actually recorded 35.5c, so at close range the Met O app was quite accurate, while the BBC and iPhone apps were less accurate.

At the moment the Met O app is forecasting a 30c max for today but I’ll be keeping an eye on it as I’m expecting it to go up again.  The other two apps are both saying a max of 29c. 

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Last Friday the Met Office app upgraded our forecast local temp several times during the day.

Ah, the ninja updates as I call it! A common occurrance here, last Friday went from a forecast of 24 on Thursday to something like 27 in the morning on Friday, then 34 by the end of the day.

It's not really the forecast updating on the day itself, btw, it's just reflecting the actual max (or interpolating it) as reported during the day.

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Heathrow is going to have to see a phenomenal rise today to get anywhere near the record. Only 17.5C at 7am.

Having said that it seems in line with the hourly forecasts on the Met Office site. Only 29C forecast by noon with the highest figures coming late in the day, 4pm to 5pm. 

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Heathrow is going to have to see a phenomenal rise today to get anywhere near the record. Only 17.5C at 7am.

Having said that it seems in line with the hourly forecasts on the Met Office site. Only 29C forecast by noon with the highest figures coming late in the day, 4pm to 5pm. 

Do you have your trusty hourly tracker link so we can compare last week.

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I’ll have a look when I am on the laptop.

I do have the hourly forecast from the Met Office link:

7am: 17 (actual 17.5)
8am: 19 (21.5)
9am: 22 (24.3)
10am: 24 (26.7)
11am: 27 (29.4)
12 noon: 29 (31.4)
1pm: 31
2pm: 33
3pm: 35
4pm: 36
5pm: 36

So well ahead of the forecast at 8am.

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Langdon Bay 23.5C at 0800

Jersey AP 24.0C

Not as windy as last Friday, which may help temps climb.

Hourly LHR figures from all-time record day 25/7/19: https://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=03772&lang=en&decoded=yes&ndays=2&ano=2019&mes=07&day=26&hora=06 (LHR recorded 37.9C max)

And from 31/7/20: https://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=03772&lang=en&decoded=yes&ndays=2&ano=2020&mes=08&day=01&hora=06 (LHR max was 37.8C)

And from 10/8/03: https://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?ind=03772&lang=en&decoded=yes&ndays=2&ano=2003&mes=08&day=11&hora=06 (LHR max was 37.9C)

Interesting that all 3 had maxima within 0.1C!

Remember that the times on those lists are UTC so add an hour to compare with BST hourly readings.

At 8am today Heathrow was 21.5C, compared with 23.0C in 2003, 23.3C last month and 24.0C in 2019. But a very long way to go yet!

Now I have to try and get on with some work and stop looking at temperature readings!

 

 

PS I am never sure why Jersey gets included in lists of UK temperatures. I know it's a British dependency but on that basis you may as well include Gibraltar! 

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Here the temp has rocketed from a low of 14*C at 6 am to just past 21*C as of 8:30.

Reminds me of last Friday with the rapid rise from a non-exceptional start.

Usually a day in the 30s is past 24*C by 10 am here. Will likely be well on pace today.

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PS I am never sure why Jersey gets included in lists of UK temperatures. I know it's a British dependency but on that basis you may as well include Gibraltar! 

Channel Isles are considered part of the British Isles.  Although geographically they are really part of France (but don't tell anyone!  )

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Furnace Friday approaching the mid 20s in parts of the south

Channel Isles are considered part of the British Isles.  Although geographically they are really part of France (but don't tell anyone!  )

Actually Gibraltar is only forecast to hit 27C today so the Channel Islands will certainly be hotter 

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28C as of 20 minutes ago in Calais - far and away above anything in the UK. However, with a southerly / SSE'ly flow likely, you can see where the hot air is coming from!

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