SPLASH HAPPY! HEATWAVE HITS CITY
Ruby Eyers, four, cools down at Beckenham Place Park’s wild swimming lake amid soaring temperatures today. Forecasters say Londoners could face the hottest night on record this week
LONDONERS could face the hottest night on record this week.
The Met Office said a high of 32C in the day tomorrow could mean the mercury will not dip below about 25C overnight.
The hottest UK night since records began was 23.9C recorded in Brighton in 1990. The record for London is 23.3C set in 1948.
Luke Miall, Met Office forecaster, said: “25C is a possibility at night this week, most likely tomorrow after a very warm day in London. Cloud coverage is expected in the evening, which will mean the temperatures will potentially stay overnight.”
The sweltering conditions will continue throughout the week in London, with forecasters saying the “feels like” temperature could be as high as 44C.
Temperatures today — the first day of the school holidays for many pupils — were set to reach 25C.
Tomorrow was predicted to be “dry and clear” with top temperatures of 32C, and 34C on Wednesday.
The forecast has caused Public Health England to issued a level 2 warning, which advises older people to not go outside during the hottest times.
The temperatures have been caused
Cloud coverage is expected in the evening, which will mean the temperatures will potentially stay overnight Luke Miall from the Met Office
by a plume of Saharan air that has already hit parts of southern Europe. More than 1,800 firemen in Portugal were today continuing to battle wildfires in the central Castelo Branco area.
The Portuguese army has been brought in, with bulldozers, planes and helicopters all deployed to help tackle the fires. Eight firefighters and 12 civilians were said to have been hurt in the fires, which remain “active”, according to the country’s interior minister Eduardo Cabrita.
Elsewhere, at least six people have died in sweltering heat in America, where temperatures topped 37C in some areas.
Four people died in Maryland, one in Arizona and another in Arkansas, officials said.
New York mayor Bill de B la sio declared a heat emergency as “feels like” temperatures reached 46C. The warmest day of 2019 so far in the UK was June 29, when 34C was recorded at Heathrow and Northolt. The highest July temperature ever recorded in Britain is 36.7C, on the first day of the month in 2015, at Heathrow.
Looking ahead to the weekend, the Met Office said temperatures would fall. “There’s some uncertainty, though, on just how long the heatwave conditions will last for,” the forecaster said. “It looks most likely that, at least by Saturday, most areas will see a bit of a drop in temperatures. There’s still a lot of sunshine around for the weekend and temperatures probably look to be not quite as hot, but with a summery feel staying for the weekend.”
A French inventor is attempting to cross the Channel this week on a hoverboard.
Franky Zapata, 40, wants to become the first man to cross on a jet-powered craft without assistance on Thursday — the 110th anniversary of the first aeroplane crossing by Louis Bleriot. The attempt is facing objections from officials due to the dangerous nature of crossing from Sangatte near Calais to St Margaret’s Bay near Dover.
The maritime prefecture in charge of the Channel has refused to let Mr Zapata refuel in the French zone, telling The Times: “The crossing is extremely dangerous given the traffic in the Channel, one of the busiest straits in the world.”
Mr Zapata wanted to refill twice but will now be able to do so only once he reaches the British side of the Channel. He can only carry enough kerosene for 10 minutes of flight.
The jet-ski racer, who won a €1.4 million grant from the French defence minister to develop his Flyboard Air project, was last seen zipping around the Place de la Concorde in Paris on July 14 in a Bastille Day display for French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.