LONDON (Reuters) – The British weather service has forecast record temperatures for the beginning of next week and has issued a warning of extreme heat for parts of England for the first time.
“We expect exceptional, perhaps record-breaking, temperatures on Monday and Tuesday,” the weather service said on its website on Friday. Temperatures of 40 degrees could be reached for the first time. According to the website, the weather service’s fourth warning level, marked in red, is intended for heat waves, in which illnesses and deaths could also occur in healthy people and not just in risk groups. At the beginning of the week, the nights are also likely to be exceptionally warm, especially in urban areas, which could lead to “wide-ranging effects on people and infrastructure”.
The highest temperature ever measured in Britain is 38.7 degrees, recorded on July 25, 2019 in the botanical gardens in the eastern English city of Cambridge. The weather service’s chief meteorologist, Paul Gundersen, expects 80 percent of the record to be surpassed in the coming days. Gundersen sees the probability of temperatures above 40 degrees at 50 percent.
