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It says in the description on the PDF you shared that the station over-reads in sunshine. That station must just be a personal one that doesn't report to the MetO. Personally I don't see the point in even having a station linked to a Raspberry Pi etc, let alone reporting to things like WOW/Wunderground, if it over-reads in sunshine. Each to their own I suppose. I went to a lot of effort (not expensive but took a lot of time) to make a small, aspirated screen for my sensor to ensure it doesn't over-read. The result is my readings are generally in line with the two nearest official MetO stations - sometimes mine are slightly lower and sometimes slightly higher (rarely differing by more than 0.7C), giving me confidence it's pretty accurate.

Is that an official MetO site?

Only a few weeks ago, I said it'd be the first summer that mid-Essex hadn't reached 30C for a decade if it didn't reach it this year. Well it's more than reached it - Writtle (Chelmsford) broke its own all-time record from Aug 2003 by 2C, reaching 37.7C. I've also recorded my own all-time record of 35.5C (my records began in Sept 2013).

A number of all-time local records must've fallen today. Writtle (Chelmsford) in Essex reached 37.7C according to MetO, smashing its Aug '03 record of 35.7C.

How's it showing a temperature that's 'between' the hours? My local one (Writtle) isn't showing up there but my next nearest, Andrewsfield, still has the 9am temp.

Teddington, Bushy Park (SW London), 29.2C at 9am. I'm using the WQRadar map, but I pay an annual subscription so don't know what non-subscribers can see: https://weatherquest.co.uk/RadarV5/ (The benefit of that site is you can get the maxes/mins for all MetO stations, including the maxes/mins for stations starting '99' which aren't available by the MetO free of charge.)

Mid-Essex missed out on 30+C at the end-of-June plume, but it finally reached 31.7C at Writtle and 30.3C at Andrewsfield yesterday (Tues), although my station 'only' got to 29.7C. However, I got to 33.6C today and Writtle (warmest in UK) got to 34.3C; Andrewsfield 32.7C. Forecasts for tomorrow here range from 32C to 37C; I suspect it'll be around 36C. The all-time max for Writtle is 35.7C; Andrewsfield 35.9C (both 10/8/03). By the way, I've been logging the forecast temps from seven online forecasters for Chelmsford over the last few days and will post results of their accuracy later this week.

I got a small unit for £200 from CPC and it works like a dream (Aldi/Lidl also sell them sometimes). Gets my bedroom (10sq.m. in size) down by several degrees in under an hour. This evening it went from 31C to 22C in a couple of hours. It's a worthwhile investment if you can afford it - costs about 50p in electricity to run all night and should have a long life as it will only be used for a couple of months (if that) each year and only at night if you just want it cool for sleeping.

Both Writtle (Chelmsford, Essex) and Charsfield (Ipswich, Suffolk) got to 33.6C at 4pm. Seem to be the hottest two stations in the UK today. May well have got warmer in-between the hours.

38.8C, Heathrow, Thursday.

I'm the same. I've always felt the heat easily - I'm now 31 and that shows no signs of changing (yet). I'm also average weight. I always go out in a t-shirt if the temperature's about 16C or more - can manage down to 13C if the sun's out and there's little wind.

Note that's the max. between 8pm Tuesday and 8am Wednesday, so presumably those high temps are from Tuesday evening. Will be interesting to see what it says for the daytime of Weds.

Can you provide a link for that site please?

Surely they'd be a lot higher than 25C in the SE with that setup?

GEFS has been picking up on a hot end to July for several days now, as identified primarily by Karl.

The GFS temp charts at that period don't seem anything overly special. Do they need a while to catch up with what the wider synoptics show?

Didn't what happened last weekend spring out of nowhere (GFS was the first to pick up on it if I remember)? Hopefully something else will similarly spring out.

How much adjustment would it take to get some real heat pumping up? Presumably the warm, relatively benign conditions over the next week would assist any heating.

If neither of the mid-Essex MetO stations* get to 30C this summer, I reckon it'll be the first summer since 2009 not to do so. *By this I mean the Andrewsfield and Writtle stations (although Andrewsfield is a bit further north). I looked at maxes back to 2015 from Writtle via WQRadar, and back much further for Andrewsfield via Ogimet.

Wouldn't that initiate a plume with the low to the west of us like that?

Maybe those who say spells of low 20Cs and sunshine is "boring" need to be more specific - it's meteorologically boring, albeit pleasant and usable. Much of June was poor so I can see why people are quick to defend the current weather, but in meteorological terms, we've had poor weather and/or meteorologically boring weather so far this summer (bar Saturday's heat which was a non-event for most). I think a 2/3-day widespread plume with storms would scratch the 'meteorological interest' itch. We often get those in summer and could do this summer, but it feels like a longer wait than usual after the poor June and the non-event last week.

Any signs of a plume on the horizon?

Below are the SLP and 850 temp charts for the days I've recorded 30C+ (in mid-Essex) in the last few years. I was looking at the main features required for such heat. It seems to me the most common setup is lack of a Greenland high, high pressure to our east, low pressure to our west and of course correspondingly warm 850 temps. Can anyone help me spot other features that have delivered these temps and/or other unusual setups from the charts below? Thanks!

It depends where you mean - nationally it may have been the warmest day of the year, but locally there are many areas which usually hit 30C but have yet to do so. So yes, perfectly possible there may be a heatwave with widespread low 30Cs, but nowhere getting to 34C.

What likely maxes would this bring, subject to the usual caveats?