UK sees hottest June day on record as heatwave eases

Santon Downham in Suffolk reached 37.3C on Friday, making June 26 the UK’s hottest June day on record as the heatwave began to loosen its grip. The Met Office said the reading provisionally beat Thursday’s 36.7C at Merryfield in Somerset and Wednesday’s 36.1C, giving the country three straight days of new June temperature records.

The previous long-standing June maximum was 35.6C, a mark that had stood since 28 June 1976 and was also matched on 29 June 1957. Friday’s figure now places this spell of heat among the most severe ever measured for the month, with the official record still subject to verification.

Even as the mercury peaked, forecasters said the worst was starting to pass. The Met Office said many areas would begin to feel fresher conditions through Friday and into the weekend as a weak cold front moved southeast across the country. The weather was expected to turn more changeable, with showers and thunderstorms possible as cooler air pushed in from the west.

The warning flags remained high. A Red Extreme Heat Warning was in force on Friday, with an amber warning covering Saturday, and the South East remained under extreme heat risk as the hotter air shifted away. The Met Office also said overnight minimum temperature records for June could be challenged in some places, extending the strain beyond the daytime peak.

The disruption was already visible on the transport network, with train delays and cancellations reported during the heatwave. That kind of knock-on impact has become a regular feature of record-setting hot spells, as rail infrastructure, roads and power systems face temperatures they were not built to handle repeatedly.

The latest record fits a pattern that is changing the language of summer in Britain. Three consecutive days produced new June highs, first on Wednesday, then Thursday, then Friday, turning what once would have been a rare extreme into a sequence of broken thresholds. With the Met Office expecting fresher, more changeable weather to spread into the weekend, the question is no longer whether one hot day will stand out, but how often new records will keep arriving.