UK Braces for Weekend Heatwave with Temperatures Reaching 34C

Comparing heatwaves is difficult because they are location dependent and the current Met Office definition has only been in place since 2019. A heatwave occurring at some point during the summer is fairly common. While this heatwave likely to be the UK's third, Scotland and Northern Ireland did not reach heatwave conditions during the last one. The last time the UK experienced three heatwaves was in 2022, when the highest temperature on record - 40.3C - was observed at Coningsby.

In terms of the number of heatwave days - when at least one location meets the temperature threshold - there have been 25 days so far in 2025. Only in 1989 and 2018 were there more heatwave days by this point in the year - with 26 and 34 days, respectively, according to data from weather website Starlings Roost Weather, external.

Though hot weather is expected during the summer, temperatures over the next few days will be around 7-10C above average for mid-July. While linking climate change with specific individual extreme weather events can be difficult, scientists say climate change is generally making heatwaves hotter, longer and more frequent.

The head of conservation at the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire Wildlife Trust, Matt Jackson, told BBC Breakfast the heat has both short- and long-term impacts on wildlife. \"The short-term impacts are that we can see things happening so much earlier in the year – things are happening 10 or 15 days earlier than we would have expected even only 20 years ago,\" he said. \"The difficulty is that things go out of sync. We get the butterflies which feed the birds, for instance, coming out at a time that is out of sync with the bird breeding cycle - so they don't have the amount of food they need to feed their chicks.\"

But Mr Jackson said the longer-term changes were the \"biggest problem\", such as soil moisture levels changing the plant ecosystems. \"We think drought is now the biggest threat to nature reserve management across the country. It is changing the way our nature reserves work and we're having to try and work out how to adapt to that.\"

According to the source: BBC.