Hot weather to return with London and other UK areas to reach over 30°C

Parts of the UK could see their hottest days of the year this weekend, with temperatures above 30°C expected.

Some reports suggest the weather in London and the South East could get as hot as 35°C. The Met Office were more measured, but still predicted the mercury would read low thirties, which would bring us back to temperatures seen in July’s mini-heatwave – or even higher.

The change in weather is due to hot air from more southern areas of Europe coming our way, helped by a change in orientation and strength of the jet stream above us.

Met Office Chief Meteorologist, Dan Suri, said: ‘Tropical Storm Debby in North America is helping to strengthen the jet stream, and is causing it to meander over the Atlantic.

‘This will allow hot air to move into the UK later this weekend, and early next week. Temperatures are likely to reach the low 30° Celsius in places, notably in the south and southeast.

‘Further north and west within this warm air, outbreaks of heavy showers or thunderstorms are possible.

‘As well as the hot daytime temperatures, a very warm night is also expected on Sunday night into Monday.’

It comes after a damp squib summer so far with not much sustained proper sunshine.

July was cooler than average compared to years since 1991, even as countries elsewhere in Europe baked under an unrelenting heatwave.

And while hot weather may be on the horizon, don’t leave your raincoat at home just yet.

Forecasters warned that there are ‘still a few more unsettled days to get through first when low pressure will be in charge’.

Before the weekend, this week remains fairly changeable, with some influxes of rain from the west on Thursday, fine weather for many on Friday and then ‘a more mixed picture on Saturday when conditions will start to feel more humid’.

But the hot weather won’t necessarily herald the start of a long stretch of summer.

The air mass bringing it will be humid too, bringing the potential for heavy rain, potentially as early as Monday.

The reason for the blast of heat is that the jet stream will build to 140 knots and shift orientation, causing the warmer airmass to the south of the UK to descend, ‘opening up a larger area for some fairly hot or even very hot conditions to develop across, at least the southeastern part of the UK’.

This will be near constant late into the weekend and across the early part of next week, the Met Office said.

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