By Wednesday, August 26, at lunchtime, the storm should have cleared to the east of the UK.
The 700 mile-wide "Canadian low-pressure vortex" brought 80mph winds and some of the worst school summer holidays weather for 50 years. To see all content on The Sun, please use the Site Map.
The purple shading in the southeast indicates that this region was the focus of the unusually warm weather. This will bring generally dry conditions, especially for the south with any wet and windy weather being mostly confined to the north. This all comes months after a major heatwave in Siberia which studies have suggested was made 600 times more likely by climate change. This warm air mass was caused by a high-pressure zone across Scandinavia and the North Sea which “blocked” cooler weather systems coming in from the Atlantic, as shown in the chart below. 679215 Registered office: 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF. UK weather forecasts continue to predict wall-to-wall sunshine for most of the country, as meteorologists declared the warmest temperatures of 2020 in May. Credit: Met Office. Two of the warnings, which indicate flooding is expected, cover the River Trent, while third was issued for Sandyford Brook in Stafford. The Met Office said: "#StormFrancis gave a wet and windy day to much of the UK on Tuesday, with a gust of 81mph being recorded at the Needles on the Isle of Wight. In this article, we look back on the recent heatwave and the factors that contributed to it. A thunderstorm warning for much of Wales, the West Midlands and parts of the north-west was upgraded to amber on Wednesday evening after severe storms caused disruption in some areas. The chart below shows the frequency of tropical nights since 1961. Webinar: Is climate change making wildfires worse? By entering your email address you agree for your data to be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Similar conditions were expected to be seen in parts of Northern Ireland, England and Wales from Wednesday afternoon, with drivers warned of delays on the roads caused by standing water. Four of these five tropical nights were consecutive, breaking records at many monitoring stations. The darker shading indicates a higher number of heatwave days/a higher threshold. Elsewhere, Cheshire police said on Twitter they were dealing with a number of weather-related incidents in the village of Tarporley, including fallen trees and flash flooding, and advised nearby residents to avoid all but essential travel. Heatwave continues to cause disruption as flooding and storm warnings issued, First published on Wed 12 Aug 2020 14.55 EDT.
Langdon Bay in Kent recorded the highest daily minimum temperature during the heatwave, seeing 22.3C on 8 August, while central London recorded a minimum of 22C on 12 August. Such studies have yet to be carried out looking at the August heatwave, although a recently published paper suggests similar heatwaves in 2019 would have been very unlikely without a human contribution.
Temperatures reached 34.6C in St James’s park in central London on Wednesday, marking the first time since at least 1961 that there have been six consecutive days of 34C and above. Storm Francis is the latest instalment of wet and windy weather battling the UK.
STORM Francis posed a "danger to life" as its 80mph winds hit the UK. A study by Met Office scientists found that the exceptionally warm and dry summer of 2018 was made 30 times more likely as a result of climate change, whilst the projections provided by the UK Climate Projections (UKCP) project suggest such summers could happen every other year by the mid-21st century if warming continues. Storm Francis is the latest instalment of wet and windy weather battling the UK. Coronavirus: What could lifestyle changes mean for tackling climate change? Many weather stations around the UK also broke or matched their maximum temperature records, many of which were decades old. As the right-hand map below shows, this heatwave temperature threshold varies throughout the country and is higher towards the southeast. The Met Office said the scorching temperatures were recorded in parts of southern England for the sixth day in a row – the first time Britain has experienced such a spell since records started in 1961. Factcheck: How electric vehicles help to tackle climate change. “Parts of the UK will see some very heavy thunderstorms with torrential rainfall and a chance of flash flooding from Wednesday, this could result in landslides and problems with travel,” added Met Office forecaster Bonnie Diamond. “It’s still going to be warm and humid and that could then trigger some thunderstorms across parts of England and Wales through the afternoon and evening tomorrow,” Dewhurst said. Please contact us for commercial use. Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world. Police forces and the RNLI have warned about the dangers of entering water after the heatwave led to a number of weather-related accidents across the country over the past week.
The maps below show the daily minimum temperatures across the UK, with the dark red and purple shading highlighting the very warmest conditions. The latest Met Office State of the UK Climate report stated that all the Top 10 warmest years in the UK since 1884 have occurred since 2002, while the Central England Temperature series provides evidence that the 21st century so far has, overall, been warmer than the previous three centuries.