The UK record June temperature of 35.6°C in Southampton, 28 June 1976, was beaten three times last week, and so far the high has been 37.3°C at Santon Downham on 26 June 2026. I can be confident that the record won't be exceeded today, as although it will still be hot by most standards in eastern Britain today, temperatures will "only" peak at around 32°C in the south-east of England, with up to 30°C in north-east England. Temperatures on Sunday will fall much closer to the seasonal norm, although still a bit on the warm side in eastern England.
The 24th and 25th June 2026 saw a similar setup to the peak of the June 1976 heatwave, with a slight easterly or south-easterly flow resulting in the highest temperatures being concentrated near the south coast of England, where Southampton exceeded its own June record. Potential for even higher temperatures in and around London, which had been widely forecast to be as high as 38 or 39°C at one stage, was reduced by a line of intense thunderstorms on Monday 22 June, which resulted in the ground conditions being less dry.
Yesterday, on the 26th, the distribution of extreme temperatures was more similar to that on 19 July 2022, when parts of Lincolnshire as well as the London area exceeded 40°C, as a southerly airflow sent a plume of hot air northwards through eastern England. A number of sites reached 37°C. At Waddington, near Lincoln, the temperature reached 36.0°C, which was 3.6°C higher than anything recorded there during June 1976, and was the third hottest day in a record going back to 1948, behind only 18 and 19 July 2022.
While the magnitude of the heat relative to climatology was not quite as extreme as on 19 July 2022, many people have struggled with it due to its duration - four consecutive very hot days for much of England and Wales, extending into parts of Scotland and Ireland at times, and combined with some unusually warm nights. Some places recorded their warmest nights on record, in any month of the year, with minima widely in excess of 21°C over large areas. Keeping houses cool was made additionally problematic by hot weather during the preceding week, where the emphasis had been more on high night time minima.
The Central England Temperature for June, which corresponds roughly to the English Midlands region, has come out at around 17°C in both 2023 and 2025, about the same as was achieved in June 1976. June 2026 looks set to reach at least that value. However, in the CET series which goes back to 1659, the record month of June 1846, with 18.2°C, is unlikely to be beaten. June 1846 was hot throughout the month, while the Junes of 2025 and 2026 were both fairly cool in the first half, which prevented these months from being quite as hot overall as June 1846 in spite of having exceptional heat in the second half. But it is becoming clear that if we were to see a repeat of the synoptic weather patterns of June 1846 in the near future, we would end up with an even hotter June overall.
In early July, a return to very hot weather looks unlikely during the first week, as we will move into a pattern dominated by a strong ridge of high pressure from the Azores to the south and south-west of Britain, with westerly and north-westerly winds on its northern flank. The weather will be more changeable but still quite dry for much of the country. There is likely to be a north-south split in terms of sunshine amounts, with plenty of sunshine in the south and south-west, nearest to the high pressure, but often cloudier conditions further north. It's the sort of weather that often gets described as "usable" with not a lot going on and moderate temperatures.
But it is increasingly looking likely that there will be further potential for very hot weather to return starting in the second week of July. The ECMWF model ensemble mean outputs for around 8 July have the Azores High becoming displaced and becoming centred over northern France and southern Britain, with another region of heat developing over Spain and Portugal and pushing up into France. This could create another "heat dome" over western Europe, most likely in the third week of July, especially if the high pressure pushes east of the Greenwich Meridian and produces another southerly airflow through Spain, Portugal and western France.
The May and June UK temperature records had looked vulnerable for a while, because they had been set upwards of 50 years ago. Late June and early 1976 saw exceptional heat concentrated over north-west Europe, but averaged globally it was one of the coolest years in the second half of the 20th century, and most other regions had average or below-average temperatures during that spell. It will be a much taller order to get new UK record temperatures this July, because of the extremity of the heatwave that peaked on 19 July 2022, which saw readings of 40°C for the first time. Even in the current climate, that event is widely estimated to have a high return period, although it is envisaged that 40°C will become considerably less unusual in Britain as we head towards the 2050s. But there is a fair amount of potential for temperatures getting into the mid to high 30s Celsius at some point during this upcoming July, and possibly as soon as the middle part of the month.
This increase in "heat domes" in western Europe, which first became noticeable around 2015 and firmly established by 2019, is a stark illustrative example of why mainstream climate scientists have shifted to calling it climate change rather than global warming. There is clearly more to this than just a warming trend in the summer temperature - the western European summer climate has shifted in ways that make these regions of exceptional heat more likely to keep forming.
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