UK weather: Temperatures are set to hit 43C on the hottest day in UK history

Britons are set to melt on the hottest UK day on record today as temperatures soar past 40C (104F) amid growing travel chaos as schools close again and millions of people responded to the chaos by working from home.

The Met Office has confirmed that last night was the warmest night on record in Britain, with temperatures not falling below 25C (77F) in many areas of England and Wales. The highest overnight minimum was 25.9C (78.6F) at Emley Moor in West Yorkshire – smashing the previous record of 23.9C (75F) in Brighton set on August 3, 1990.

Temperatures had already hit 30C (86F) at 8.30am today in London and Manchester. As early as 6am today, it was 27C (81F) in parts of South East England, 24C (75F) in the South West and 22C (72F) in the Midlands. 

Forecasters expect an absolute peak of 43C (109F) in central or eastern England today – one day after Wales had its hottest day ever with 37.1C (99F) in Hawarden, Flintshire, beating a record set in the same village in 1990. 

The mercury peaked in the UK at 38.1C (100.6F) in Suffolk yesterday, making it the hottest day of 2022 and the third hottest day on record, after 38.7C (101.7F) in Cambridge in 2019 and 38.5C (101.3F) in Kent in August 2003.

Network Rail and train operators upgraded their travel advice for services heading north out of London into the red warning area to ‘do not travel’, saying there will be no services in or out of London King’s Cross all day today. 

The heat has brought major rail chaos for commuters around the capital, with no Thameslink or Great Northern trains running in any location north of London, from Blackfriars via St Pancras, or from King’s Cross or Moorgate.

LNER will run no trains from south of York and south of Leeds to King’s Cross – and Southern, Southeastern, South Western Railway and Great Western Railway are among the operators running significantly reduced services.

On the London Underground, there was no Hammersmith & City line, no Metropolitan line between Baker Street and Aldgate due to ‘heat-related speed restrictions’, and severe delays on the Central and District lines.

There was also no Overground between Willesden Junction and Richmond or Romford and Upminster, while there were delays on other Overground lines, the Jubilee line and the western and eastern parts of the Elizabeth line.

Transport for London said London’s rail network will be running a reduced service throughout today due to safety restrictions put into place to deal with the heat, and Gatwick Express trains were completely suspended.

Network Rail had previously warned customers to travel only if ‘absolutely necessary’ today – while Merseyrail said the number of trains running and journey times will be ‘seriously affected’, with some routes closed completely.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told people across Britain today to ‘apply common sense’ and ‘depending on the nature of your journey and reason for it, you might want to consider rearranging your day around it’. 

But the sight of parts of the UK shutting down sparked a backlash, with complaints that ministers and health chiefs were ‘acting like nanny’ – while holidaymakers were delayed yesterday as a part of runway at Luton Airport melted.

With the UK’s first ever red warning for extreme heat still predicted to see the 40C (104F) barrier broken for the first time ever today, normal life was on hold in parts of the country as:

• At least 171 schools closed, with teachers claiming learning was impossible in sweltering classrooms;
• Hospitals cancelled appointments and non-urgent operations as operating theatres turned into ovens;
• Royal Mail workers were told to return to sorting offices with undelivered mail amid fears they would fall ill;
• Experts recommended avoiding the beach and holding off exercising until the extreme heat has passed;
• Commuter numbers on roads and railways were down by up to a fifth, and tracks on some lines buckled;
• There was a spate of water-related tragedies, including a 13-year-old boy’s body pulled from the River Tyne;
• A 50-fold increase in demand for fans alongside a boom for bottled water, ice lollies and canned cocktails;
• Water companies raised the prospect of hosepipe bans amid fears of a summer drought.

Met Office meteorologist Rachel Ayers said: ‘The temperature will be very hot throughout the day, before rising as high as 40C, maybe even 41C in isolated spots across England during the afternoon.

‘This will make it the hottest day on record and the first time we have seen temperatures as high as 40C.

‘There are likely to be delays on roads, with road closures, as well as possible delays and cancellations to trains and maybe issues with air travel. This could pose a significant health risk to those stuck on services or roads during the heat.’

Forecasters and NHS leaders have warned that thousands of people – even those who are fit and healthy – could die during the ‘ferocious’ heatwave, urging them to do ‘as little as possible’.

But in a furious backlash, senior Tory MPs claimed people were becoming ‘frightened of the heat’. Former Conservative leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘Great British common sense should be allowed to prevail’.

‘I long for the day when the Government stops acting like Nanny telling everyone what to do, every institution panicking and the BBC telling us we’re all going to die,’ he said yesterday.

‘If it’s very hot, just give people advice – wear a hat, wear sun lotion, drink a lot of liquid. If you go to Italy or France, they don’t just stop everything because it’s hot.’

Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense group of backbench Tory MPs, said we were entering ‘a cowardly new world where we live in a country where we are frightened of the heat’.

‘It is not surprising that in snowflake Britain, the snowflakes are melting,’ he added. ‘Thankfully, most of us are not snowflakes.’

Former Tory Health Minister Edwina Currie warned against ‘too much hectoring’.

She called on the Government to promote ‘more positive messages’ in hot weather, such as going to work and school early in the morning and ‘having a siesta’ to stay out of the sun.

Former Northern Ireland First Minister Dame Arlene Foster branded the warnings ‘Government over-reach’, add-ing that ‘all of this started with Covid regulations’.

She told BBC Politics Live people now ‘expect the Government to tell them how to live their lives, which I think is absolutely wrong’.

Tory donor and Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins claimed the push to stay away from work due to hot weather risked damaging an already fragile economy.

‘The only reason they want to be at home is so they can sit in the sun,’ he told Jeremy Vine’s Channel 5 show. ‘It’s another excuse. Just go to work, get on with your job.

‘If we put up with this, we’re going to open the floodgates for all the snowflakes. They’re not going to come to work, whether it’s too foggy, too wet, too rainy, windy, (or) storms are coming.’

Scotland and Northern Ireland also experienced their warmest days of the year so far yesterday with 31.3C (88.3F) recorded in Aboyne, Aberdeenshire, and 31.1C (88F) in Derrylin, County Fermanagh.

After Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab urged the country to ‘enjoy the sunshine’ and be ‘resilient enough through some of the pressures it will place’, beaches were thronged yesterday.

Meanwhile commuter numbers plummeted across England – with a corresponding rise in visitor numbers to sea-side resorts.

It suggested that millions of people had heeded Cabinet Office Minister Kit Malthouse, who said ‘this may be a moment to work from home’ – or taken the day off altogether.

After more than a dozen train companies advised passengers to travel only if it is ‘absolutely necessary’, Network Rail said the number using major stations across Britain yesterday was around 20 per cent down on the week be-fore.

Rail tracks buckled in London’s Vauxhall in the heat – resulting in a safety inspection on the line that caused disruption between Waterloo and Clapham Junction. 

And operator Great Northern said a buckled rail at Watlington in Norfolk meant services could not run between Cambridge and Kings Lynn.

Predictions of long tailbacks as road surfaces melted in the heat also took effect, with location technology firm TomTom recording congestion at 9am down by up to 11 per cent in major UK cities.

Lincolnshire Police said road surface temperatures topping 50C caused parts of the A159 to melt.

Transport for London – which advised people to ‘only travel if essential’ – said Tube passenger numbers were down 18 per cent on the previous Monday.

Meanwhile bus journeys in the capital were down ten per cent week-on-week.

Retail analysts Springboard reported a similar fall in Central London footfall yesterday, with 11 per cent fewer peo-ple in regional cities – but a nine per cent boost in visitors to coastal towns.

‘People are clearly working at home today as advised,’ said the firm’s insights director, Diane Wehrle.

A number of small shops around the country closed early for the day or have closed completely until tomorrow. These included several groups of charity shops, while hairdressers, cafes and chip shops put up the closed signs.

In Durham, Woofs and Cuts dog groomers shut because it was ‘unsafe for any dogs to be in the hot conditions and for the journey to the appointment’.

At Wapping Wharf, Bristol, fashion and gift shop Frankly explained: ‘Our shop is in a metal box and it gets VERY hot in there.’ 

But the British Retail Consortium said major chains tend to have air conditioning, which protects staff and shoppers.

Meanwhile several ambulance trusts reported normal call volumes for a Monday as NHS medical director Professor Sir Stephen Powis insisted ‘the overwhelming majority of NHS services are continuing to run’.

Flights were suspended at London Luton Airport for around two hours before engineers managed to repair what was described as a ‘surface defect’ on the runway.

Activity was also halted at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, with Sky News reporting that part of the runway had melted.

There are also warnings of wildfires, with people warned not to use barbecues or leave litter that could spark fires in the countryside. 

A dramatic aerial photographs showed a huge area of farmland near Chesterfield in Derbyshire left charred and blackened by a fierce blaze.

Zoos and wildlife parks closed to protect animals, staff and visitors.

And Royal Mail warned there could be disruption to post deliveries, saying in a statement: ‘In areas where tem-peratures rise to potentially dangerous levels during the day, our staff have been advised to return to the office with any mail they have been unable to deliver and not put themselves under any risk of falling ill due to the extreme heat. The safety of our staff is paramount during this time.’

Water companies also said they were experiencing ‘unprecedented peak demand’, with people encouraged to ‘carefully consider’ their water usage and urged not to waste it.

Met Office chief executive Professor Penelope Endersby said a summer drought was a real threat after the first half of 2022 was drier than average.

Thames Water’s demand reduction manager, Andrew Tucker, admitted the firm was getting through water sup-plies ‘faster than we would like’.

While no restrictions are currently planned, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the situation ‘may change’ if the weather remains dry.

Elsewhere, council gritters were on stand-by to spread light dustings of sand on melting roads.

The RAC anticipated that the number of vehicle breakdowns on Monday and Tuesday could be up to a fifth higher than normal.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has a high pollution alert in place in the eastern parts of England and the East Midlands, meaning EU ozone pollution thresholds have been exceeded.

It comes as a 14-year-old boy is missing and believed to have drowned yesterday afternoon after getting into difficulty in the Thames in Richmond, west London.

The teenager was seen entering the water at Tagg’s Island in Hampton and, after a search took place, he was presumed dead, with officers calling the incident a ‘tragedy’.

Emergency services and the Government have reiterated urgent warnings about the dangers of trying to keep cool after several tragedies in waterways and reservoirs during the heatwave.

It came as the family of 13-year-old Robert Hattersley said they were ‘absolutely devastated’ after he died when he got into trouble in the River Tyne in Northumberland on Sunday.

Emergency services also confirmed the deaths of a 16-year-old boy in Salford Quays, Greater Manchester, a 16-year-old boy in Bray Lake near Maidenhead, Berkshire, and a 50-year-old man in a reservoir near Leeds in similar circumstances.

There have been warnings of pressures on hospitals from the extreme temperatures, and concerns ambulance services would face rising numbers of calls as the heat peaks on Tuesday afternoon.

The UK Health Security Agency has issued a level 4 heat-health alert – described as an ’emergency’ – and the UK is under its first red extreme heat warning for a large part of England, issued by the Met Office.

Britons have been urged to stay inside during the hottest period of the day, between 11am and 4pm, and wear sun cream, a hat, stay in the shade and keep hydrated with water – and there are warnings about swimming in lakes, rivers and reservoirs.

While the extreme heat will continue today, a band of rain will bring an end to the sweltering conditions tomorrow.

But Met Office meteorologist Luke Miall said: ‘I’ve been a qualified meteorologist for ten years, and telling people about 41C in the UK doesn’t seem real.’