This month is expected to be the hottest June on record in the UK, with temperatures more than 1C warmer so far than the previous record set way back in 1940.
Provisional Met Office figures give an average maximum daily temperature of 21.6C up to and including Sunday 25 June, which saw the thermometer hit 32.2C for the second time this month.
This is comfortably ahead of the 20.5 maximum daily average recorded 83 years ago.
Temperatures over the next few days are likely to be considerably cooler than last week and over the weekend, but they are still expected to end the month on a record.
“There are some cooler days in the forecast before the month ends, but these would be have to be significantly cooler to have the effect of taking June 2023 off the top spot,” said Met Office climate spokesman Grahame Madge.
“Currently, the daily maximum temperature for the UK so far this June is highest for any June since records began in 1884, exceeding the previous warmest year in June 1940 by over 1.C,” he said.
At the very least, “June 2023 will be one of the warmest on record for the UK – but we will not be able to confirm [whether it hit a new record] until 1 July,” he said.
It means this June looks set to beat a record set at the height of World War Two and also tops the infamous summer of 1976 when You To Me Are Everything by The Real Thing was top of the charts and a prolonged dry spell saw rivers so dry children were able to cycle along the River Taff in Wales and forest fires erupted in Dorset and elsewhere.
Met Office spokesman Stephen Dixon added: “Over the next week what we are seeing is a transition into a fresher and cooler regime,” said
“It could be the high teens in Scotland and north of England, which is not cold by any stretch – just not as warm as recently,” he said.
The higher temperatures will increase the risk of wildfires and heat-related deaths, experts said.
And they will also put water resources under increasing pressure.
As the Met Office predicted record-breaking temperatures for June, millions of households across Kent and Sussex are facing fines of up to £1,000 if they are caught using hosepipes or sprinklers from today.
South East Water’s hosepipe ban came into effect as part of emergency measures to supply drinking water after it saw record levels of demand in June.
Measures taken in the south east mirror those that have been in effect throughout Devon and Cornwall since April after South West Water introduced a ban to help the region cope with drought.
Although temperatures are expected to be much higher than usual across much of the summer there is only a 1 per cent chance they they will exceed 40C this year – as they did for the first time last year, the Met Office said.
