United Kingdom records hottest May since 1922 with overnight temperature record
Key takeaways
- The overnight minimum record came just hours after the country broke on Monday the absolute temperature record for any day in May since the beginning of modern statistical recording.
- The extreme heat episode began on Sunday, when 30.5 degrees were reached in southeast England, a region particularly exposed to warm air masses coming from continental Europe.
- The wave is part of a global context of increasing extreme heat episodes, a phenomenon whose intensity and frequency scientific bodies link directly to human-driven climate change.
Why this matters: an international story with cross-border implications worth tracking.
The United Kingdom registered on Tuesday its warmest dawn ever recorded for a May month, with a minimum temperature of 21.3 degrees Celsius in south London, according to the British Meteorological Office, known as the Met. The reading constitutes what meteorologists call a tropical night, a category reserved for periods in which the overnight temperature does not fall below 20 degrees, an unusual phenomenon for this time of year in the British Isles.
The overnight minimum record came just hours after the country broke on Monday the absolute temperature record for any day in May since the beginning of modern statistical recording. The mercury reached 33.5 degrees Celsius in the vicinity of Heathrow Airport, west of London, surpassing the previous mark of 32.8 degrees recorded also in the British capital in 1922. The Met Office warned that temperatures could continue to rise throughout Tuesday, with forecasts placing the highs around 35 degrees, which would represent a new absolute record for the fifth month of the year.
The extreme heat episode began on Sunday, when 30.5 degrees were reached in southeast England, a region particularly exposed to warm air masses coming from continental Europe. The Met framed the phenomenon within the sustained warming dynamic that the atmosphere of the northern hemisphere has experienced over the past decade, in line with the pattern of successive records in recent springs. British health authorities activated amber-level heat risk alerts in several regions of the country's centre and south, particularly aimed at populations over 65 years of age, chronically ill people, and children.