The UK is set to bake in a heatwave which could see record-breaking highs of 38C.
Next week’s forecast means there is “growing confidence” the record for the hottest June temperature of 35.6C, which was set in 1976 in Southampton, could be broken, the Met Office said.
The current heat comes after a mean temperature of 16.1C was measured between the start of June and the end of August in 2025, making last year the hottest UK summer since records began, according to the weather service.
Last summer saw four heatwaves and a hottest temperature of 35.8C recorded in Faversham in Kent, below the UK’s all-time high of 40.3C which was measured in July 2022.
Last year saw consistently above-average temperatures throughout June and July and knocked the memorable summer of 1976 out of the hottest five UK summers on record, the weather service said.
In the summer of 1976, Britons sweltered in one of the longest heatwaves in living memory, with 15 consecutive days hitting 32C or higher.
There was a significant drought with no rainfall recorded for 36 days across the whole of England and Wales between June and August that year.
The dwindling water supplies led to the passing of a Drought Act, water rationing and the use of standpipes.
In south-east Wales, conditions were so severe that supplies were cut off for 17 hours a day for up to 11 weeks, and 70 companies in the area were ordered to halve water consumption.
The harsh conditions took their toll on agriculture, with £500 million worth of crops destroyed, resulting in soaring food prices.
Subsidence was also a problem as the ground became increasingly parched and insurance claims rose to £60 million.
At the time, it was England and Wales’s driest summer since records began in 1766.
The summer of 2018 is currently the second hottest on record, when a mean temperature of 15.76C was measured, followed by 2006, 2003 and 2022.
This year, England and Wales saw their warmest spring on record after a heatwave in May and six consecutive days where temperatures hit more than 30C.
Met Office meteorologist Simon Partridge said climate change meant the extreme spells of weather were becoming “more frequent”.
“That’s unfortunately just the way things are going at the moment and it doesn’t seem to be slowing down,” he said.
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