Londoners are greeting morning rain as a welcome relief after sweltering in their beds following the hottest day of the year.
Early-risers experienced the rare sight of falling rain after struggling to get to sleep as temperatures remained above 20C into the early hours.
It comes after the UK has had its hottest day of the year so far with temperatures exceeding 34C.
The Met Office confirmed that 34.7C was recorded at at St James’s Park in central London on Tuesday afternoon, beating a 34.4C reading recorded in Writtle, Essex earlier in the day.
The previous warmest day in the UK in 2025 was June 21 when 33.2C was recorded in Charlwood, Surrey.
Me at 06:00 this morning as the rain in #london falls on the road to cool us all down pic.twitter.com/6cwI2tJNEw
— Just another red 👺👺👺 (@iGotADDi) July 2, 2025
It also exceeds Monday’s peak temperature of 33.1C at Heathrow, which marked the hottest start to Wimbledon on record.
The heatwave that has spanned four days over London comes looks to be over with temperatures in the capital expected to rise no higher than 25C.
The hot weather marked the second heatwave for parts of the UK within the last month, with scientists warning the searing temperatures earlier in June were made 100 times more likely because of human-caused climate change.
Provisional Met Office figures, released on Tuesday, show England had its warmest June on record last month, while the UK experienced its second warmest since the series began in 1884 - only surpassed by June 2023.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) had amber heat health alerts in place for much of the country until Wednesday morning.
In Bedfordshire, gritters have been dispatched to protect the roads and provide grip for drivers amid concerns the heat could cause the tarmac to soften, the local council said in a Facebook post.
Met Office spokesman Stephen Dixon said Tuesday was likely to mark “the peak of this current heatwave in terms of absolute temperatures we’re expecting”.
“It’s a continuation of recent days in the South East in particular, with those temperatures well beyond average for the time of year, in a fairly notable heatwave,” he added.
