Monday was a pleasant sunny day without the extreme heat of recent weeks under the heatwave conditions, after the morning cloud moved on. The thermometer steadily rose to a peak of 22.2C at 16.31 being 0.5C below average whilst the past night was cool, and also below average at -1.2C, with a minimum of 10.6C logged at 05.10 early Tuesday just after sunrise in Marlborough at 05.00. The early morning light precipitation soon evaporated as the sun got to work and the gusty northerly wind picked up speed, peaking at 19mph.
Tuesday brought a bright and sunny day with the wind still strong, however, from a more north-northwest direction.
The Azores High is currently elongated in shape ridging across the country with the airstream circulating clockwise around the anticyclone, as they do. This is bringing the warmth from the Azores region around the northerly edge of the high before turning south across the UK, which will mean a more northwesterly breeze today.
There is a possibility that the heat will increase significantly on Wednesday and then be the start of another heatwave, that could last in excess of a week. It is chastening to realise that the extreme heat can produce excess deaths. During the intense heatwave of 2022 there were in excess of 4,000 additional deaths. Research shows that with maxima in excess of 25C there is an increase of 30% of deaths in England and 60% increase in Wales. The outlook is for the maxima to be well above that temperature for a week or more.