Met Office issue verdict over September heatwave hitting 'half' of UK

James Rodger
·2-min read

The Met Office has spoken out over claims a September heatwave could be about to sizzle the UK with 25C highs. Oli Claydon, from the Met Office, has had his say amid reports the country will be "split" with the prospect of a heatwave in parts of the north.

“The forecast is a divide in fortunes between the North and South,” he said. “The South and Wales are to see an unsettled period with spells of heavy rain at times. We've issued a severe weather warning for Wednesday and Thursday that continues into the weekend as well.”

“By the time we get to Friday we can see temperatures of 26C for parts of the North and Scotland. The heatwave threshold in the North is slightly less, so we might too far off nudging towards heatwave territory in parts. It's pretty borderline.” Northern Ireland will see slightly more settled weather, but not as warm as Scotland, Oli added.

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Oli said there was “no indication” of a heatwave, though. “It was a notable heat spell last year, which led to three tropical nights on the bounce. I believe it was the hottest September on record," he said. “The long range at the moment suggests the middle of the month is looking like much fresher conditions.

"There's nothing to suggest any heatwave at the moment.” James Madden, from Exacta Weather, said: "This might or might not fall a little short of the low to mid 30s on this occasion for these reasons, and had the joint high pressure from the mid-Atlantic and the south of the country developed as we had expected, then these types of temperatures would not even be in question for this period.

"However, our own forecasts are now also in recognition of another major and moderate to high confidence pressure build from the south of the country to make up for this for in and around 18th September, possibly a little earlier, and this would have the potential to bring even hotter temperatures across our shores than the current warm to hot period.

"Some potentially unsettled and thundery weather may also creep in temporarily during later next week and prior to the next heat surge, and also beyond this during the second half of the month, when we expect something quite different to develop at times."

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