UK braces for third heatwave in seven weeks, temperatures hit 34C

The UK was set to face its third heatwave in just seven weeks, with the Met Office forecasting temperatures of around 34C in some places by the middle of the week. Nearly all of England was already covered by heat-health alerts, underlining how quickly a run of hot spells has become a repeated pressure rather than a one-off event.

BBC Weather said temperatures would fall in some parts of the UK this weekend, making it feel noticeably cooler, but the heatwave was still expected to continue. The UK Health Security Agency’s heat-health alert service covers England only, so the warnings do not apply across the whole of the United Kingdom even as the hot spell stretches on.

The Met Office said high pressure would become more firmly established across the country, allowing warm and settled conditions to spread northwards. It also warned that the hot spell could peak before a return to more changeable conditions later, suggesting that the hottest period may arrive quickly and then ease, rather than build gradually.

The scale of the summer has already broken records. The Met Office said temperatures of 35C or higher had been recorded in May, June and July of the same year for the first time in the UK weather record. BBC Weather said parts of southern England had already seen 13 straight days above heatwave criteria, while the UK had logged 12 consecutive days at or above 30C, the longest such spell since 2006.

The same stretch of extreme heat has also pushed monthly averages sharply higher. BBC Weather said June 2026 was the warmest June on record for England and the second warmest for the UK as a whole, with a mean temperature of 17.1C, nearly 3C above average. That sequence of records has left little doubt that this summer is being shaped by repeated heat, not isolated bursts of it.