May 17, 2024
LONDON (AP) — Britain shattered its record for the highest temperature ever registered Tuesday amid a heat wave that has seized swaths of Europe — and the national weather forecaster predicted it would get hotter still in a country ill-prepared for such extremes.
The typically temperate nation was just the latest to be walloped by unusually hot, dry weather that has gripped the continent since last week, triggering wildfires from Portugal to the Balkans and leading to hundreds of heat-related deaths.
The U.K. Met Office registered a provisional reading of 104.4 degrees Fahrenheit at Heathrow Airport — breaking the record set just an hour earlier. Before Tuesday, the highest temperature recorded in Britain was 101.7 F, a record set in 2019.
“Temperatures are likely to rise further through today,’’ the forecaster said after the first record fell.
The sweltering weather has disrupted travel, health care, and schools in a country not prepared for such extremes. A huge chunk of England, from London in the south to Manchester and Leeds in the north, remained under the country’s first “red” warning for extreme heat Tuesday, meaning there is a danger of death even for healthy people.
London streets saw less traffic, as many heeded advice to stay out of the sun, and trains ran at low speed out of concern rails could buckle, or did not run at all. The British Museum — which has a glass-roofed atrium — planned to shut its doors early. And the Supreme Court closed to visitors after a problem with the air conditioning forced it to move hearings online.
Many public buildings, including hospitals, don’t even have air conditioning, a reflection of how unusual such extreme heat is in the country better known for rain and mild temperatures.
The capital’s Hyde Park, normally busy with walkers, was eerily quiet — except for the long lines to take a dip in the park's Serpentine Lake.
“I’m going to my office because it is nice and cool,’’ said geologist Tom Elliott, 31, after taking a swim. “I’m cycling around instead of taking the Tube.’’
London’s King's Cross Station, one of the country’s busiest rail hubs, was empty on Tuesday, with no trains on the typically bustling east coast line connecting the capital to the north and Scotland. London’s Luton Airport closed its runway for several hours Monday because of heat damage.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said Britain’s transport infrastructure, some of it dating from Victorian times, “just wasn’t built to withstand this type of temperature — and it will be many years before we can replace infrastructure with the kind of infrastructure that could.”
The dangers of extreme heat were on display in Britain and around Europe. At least six people were reported to have drowned across the U.K. in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs while trying to cool off. Meanwhile, nearly 750 heat-related deaths have been reported in Spain and neighboring Portugal during the heat wave there.
