UK heatwave longest in decades
For much of the year, Britain is wet and dreary, more mystery novel than sparkling beach read.
Come the northern summer, though, Brits enjoy warm days and sweater-weather nights.
At least that’s usually the case. But not this year. Britain is in the throes of the longest heat wave since 1976.
Average summer temperatures usually hover around 25C.
In London, it stays slightly cooler, hitting the low 20s during the day and dropping into the 10s at night.
This year, it’s been much hotter, with spikes well into the 30s. It’s been unusually dry, too — just 5cm of rain have fallen between June 1 and July 16, making it the driest summer on record. And experts say the heat will last at least through until early August.
The Heat Health Watch Service, run by the Met Office and Public Health England, has issued a warning, urging people to stay inside and drink plenty of fluids.
Prime Minister Theresa May has urged people to stay out of the sun until the end of Saturday, when temperatures are expected to hit 34C.
The weather has been so hot and dry that it has turned Britain from green to brown. Satellite images released by the Met Office show just how dramatically the weather has changed the country’s topography.
In addition to browned fields and crop damage, the warm, dry weather has been blamed for fires in northwestern England and a ban on sprinklers in Ireland.
There have been some unexpected upsides.
The dry conditions exposed a “drowned village” in a reservoir in Dartmoor, Devon. The valley was flooded in 1898, experts say, submerging village walls, a farmhouse and a bridge. In Wales, researchers uncovered an early medieval cemetery and a prehistoric Roman farm. The Independent described it as a “gold rush” and “near-unprecedented bonanza” for archaeologists.
A report from Britain’s Met Office suggests that climate change will make heat waves more frequent and severe.
Elswhere in Europe, a heat wave in Scandinavia resulted in new alltime high temperature records, over 32C, as far north as inside the Arctic Circle. This extreme heat intensified the historic bushfire outbreak in Sweden.
Meanwhile, Japan set a new national temperature record in the third week of a punishing heat wave that has killed dozens.
The mercury soared to 41C in Kumagaya, which is about 65km northwest of Tokyo, the country’s highest temperature on record. The mark surpassed the previous record 41C set in Shimanto, Kochi Prefecture. during August of 2013.
Dozens of locations in Japan set record highs on Monday, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, and 241 individual weather stations hit at least 35C.
In the city of Ome on the west side of Tokyo, the mercury touched 40.8C, its highest temperature ever recorded.
Excessive heat was also observed in both South and North Korea on Monday, AP reported
The heat is the result of an intense area of high pressure, sometimes called a heat dome, which has stayed for days.