The Heat Passes Its Peak as a Cooldown Nears
Britain’s third heatwave of the year has passed its peak, with temperatures reaching the low-to-mid 30s in the South East on Thursday — below the 35C recorded earlier in the spell — before a cooler, more unsettled spell arrives from Saturday. Yellow heat-health alerts from the UK Health Security Agency remain in force across much of England until Friday evening, and forecasters still warn of a high wildfire risk on tinder-dry ground. Fresh hosepipe bans from Cambridge Water and Affinity Water take legal effect on Friday, adding to restrictions that already cover millions of households.
This heatwave never threatened the records set in May and June, but its danger was always its length: southern England has now sat above the heatwave threshold for well over a week, drying the ground to the point where the wildfire risk has climbed to its highest, even as the temperatures begin to ease. The heat’s quieter toll runs alongside the fire risk — the open-water drownings that spike in every hot spell, the strain on a stretched NHS, and the warm nights that fall hardest on the old and the ill. The spread of hosepipe bans to millions of homes is a measure of how a dry winter and a run of heatwaves have drained a system with little slack, reviving the argument over the water companies’ years of under-investment. The relief arriving from Saturday may come with thunderstorms and their own risk of flash flooding. Watch how far temperatures fall over the weekend, whether more companies impose bans, and whether the Environment Agency declares a drought.