Following a series on intense heat spells, the Met Office have warned that UK heatwaves are about to get longer and hotter in the coming years – risking dangerously high temperatures of up to 40C
Brits have been urged to brace for hotter and longer heatwaves, following alarming new data from the Met Office. The UK has been sweltering under sky-high temperatures in recent weeks thanks to a series of intense hot spells. In fact, last month was the warmest June on record in England, and the second warmest in the UK since records began back in 1994.
Then, on July 1, the UK experienced its hottest day of the year, with St James’ Park in London reaching a scorching 34.7C. While the balmy temperatures and blue skies were dramatically quashed this week thanks to heavy rain and thunderstorms that battered huge parts of the nation – it seems Britain is set to bask in the sunshine once again.
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Temperatures reaching up to 27C are expected to return to multiple towns and cities this weekend. While the odd heatwave (especially one that lands on a weekend) may be appreciated by pasty Brits wanting to top up their tan, experts are concerned about the frequency of these extreme conditions.
Heatwaves have been linked with thousands of deaths in recent years – with a staggering 2,295 people dying due to five periods of heat across the summer of 2023.
Last month, a rapid analysis found that the UK’s intense heat spell will ‘likely’ kill almost 600 people in England and Wales. “Heatwaves are silent killers – people who lose their lives in them typically have pre-existing health conditions and rarely have heat listed as a contributing cause of death,” said Dr Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, at Imperial College London.
As a result, Met Office scientists have recently published a shocking study revealing the chance of temperatures exceeding 40°C in the UK is accelerating at pace. The UNSEEN study uses a global climate model to create a ‘large set of plausible climate outcomes in the current climate’. This allows experts to predict the current risk and how extremes have changed over the last few decades.
“The chance of exceeding 40°C has been rapidly increasing, and it is now over 20 times more likely than it was in the 1960s,” Dr Gillian Kay, Senior Scientist at the Met Office, and lead author of the study states. “Because our climate continues to warm, we can expect the chance to keep rising.”
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The study concluded that there is now a 50-50 chance of seeing another 40C day again in the next 12 years in the UK. “We also found that temperatures several degrees higher than we saw in July 2022 are possible in today’s climate,” Dr Kay added.
Dr Nick Dunstone, Met Office Science Fellow and co-author of the study, warned that UK heatwaves are also becoming longer. “The well-known hot summer of 1976 had more than a fortnight above 28°C, which is a key heatwave threshold in southeast England,” he explained.
“Our study finds that in today’s climate such conditions could persist for a month or more. These findings highlight the need to prepare and plan for the impacts of rising temperatures now, so we can better protect public health, infrastructure, and the environment from the growing threat of extreme heat.”
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