General
Parts of U.K. Brace for the Hottest Day of the Year
Temperatures were expected to reach near 90 degrees on Tuesday, unusually warm for the region. The government issued a health alert for vulnerable groups.
Large portions of England and Wales braced for considerable heat on Tuesday, with government officials issuing an alert for vulnerable people and meteorologists warning it would be hottest day of the year so far.
Temperatures in London and along the southern and eastern coastlines are expected to climb to nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit, or 32 Celsius, which may be typical weather this time of year for many parts of the world but is unusual for Britain, where the weather this summer has been especially cool and rainy.
The heat in Britain may also stir up sweaty memories of a string of brutally hot days across the country in July 2022, when schools, doctors’ offices and museums shut their doors while the government urged people to work from home. In Britain, few people have air conditioning at home, and much of the country’s housing stock was built to retain heat. Transport delays in very hot or very cold weather are not uncommon.
“Much of the U.K. is entering a warm or even hot interlude of weather, with some places in England and Wales likely to meet heat-wave criteria in the coming days,” Frank Saunders, the chief meteorologist at the Met Office, Britain’s national weather service, said in a news release on Tuesday.
Britain’s health security agency issued a yellow alert, a level one out of three, for most of England, from the southern coast through the Midlands. Yellow indicates weather conditions were unlikely to affect most people, but could bother those who are particularly vulnerable.
On Monday night, when temperatures were relatively warm by Britain’s standards, the line to enter an outdoor pool in East London extended out of the facility. Robyn Landau, an interdisciplinary scientist, said that hot weather in London feels much hotter than in other cities that are better designed to cope with it.
