Britain just can’t seem to cool down, and honestly, at this point, we’re not sure we want it to.
Thursday marked the eighth time this year that temperatures climbed beyond 34C, smashing the previous record of seven such days in a single calendar year. That record had stood for years. It’s gone now, buried under a very sweaty summer that shows no signs of letting up.
The Met Office has confirmed the heat is sticking around into next week, with 35C highs likely across parts of England. The South East is bearing the brunt of it, though Scotland and Wales aren’t exactly getting off lightly either, with temperatures running well above seasonal averages for the second consecutive week.
For most people, the novelty wore off somewhere around day four. Paddling pools sold out. Electric fans became the most sought-after item on eBay. Train operators began issuing speed restrictions on certain lines, citing the risk of rails buckling under sustained heat, which is precisely as alarming as it sounds.
“We’re seeing demand at a level we normally associate with a Bank Holiday weekend, every single day,” one National Rail spokesperson noted, as commuters across the country quietly reconsidered their life choices on sweltering platforms.
The NHS has renewed its heat-health alert across England, urging people to check on elderly neighbours and to keep drinking water even when they don’t feel thirsty. Heat exhaustion cases have risen sharply at A&E departments in London and Birmingham over the past fortnight.
There’s a larger conversation lurking beneath all this, of course. Climate scientists at the University of Reading have been pointing out for years that the probability of consecutive extreme heat days in the UK has increased significantly since the 1980s. What once felt exceptional is becoming, uncomfortably, the new normal.
For now though, the paddling pools remain inflated, the office air conditioning remains inadequate, and the British public remains stoically, cheerfully, slightly desperately optimistic.
The real question isn’t whether it’ll cool down by the weekend. It’s whether next summer will look even more like this one.
