TEMPERATURES in Scotland could “easily” surpass 30C amid a heatwave to hit the country this week – but people should not go “taps aff”, a Met Office expert has warned.
Alex Deakin, a presenter and meteorologist at the weather agency, said that the highest temperatures were likely in the northeast of Scotland – and topping 30C is “pretty unusual and likely to cause problems to people with health issues”.
“I know people want to go ‘taps aff’ – but I would really advise against that,” he added.
The highest temperature ever recorded in Scotland was 34.8C, at Charterhall in the Borders in 2022.
Deakin said that such extremes were becoming more common as a result of climate change.
“Tell people in Scotland it's going to be two or three degrees warmer every year, most people will be quite happy – but it's a much bigger issue than that.
“It's not just, ‘oh, the world is warming by a few degrees, so Scotland will get warmer by a couple of degrees’. No, it's more extremes.
“You will see these bigger fluctuations. As well as the higher temperatures, you're going to get heavier rain.
“A warmer atmosphere holds more rain, so the summer downpours are more intense, they're more dangerous. You get bigger hailstones and damaged crops. The winters will be wetter.
“It changes the natural environment, it changes what you can plant, what you can farm, it changes animal migration, things like that. It changes absolutely everything.”
The third heatwave of the year, or just the first? Alex Deakin looks at which regions will be affected by this latest hot spell pic.twitter.com/LPdaynwSUi
— Met Office (@metoffice) July 9, 2025
Deakin, a former BBC weather presenter, said that Scotland and the wider UK were due to see a heatwave from Thursday – though there is some uncertainty about when it will end.
“We're very confident in the forecast in the short to medium term, so we know that temperatures are going to increase steadily through this week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,” he said.
“It's not unusual to have uncertainty about the longer term forecast – cooler air out in the Atlantic is likely to move in early next week, but it's a question mark about whether that happens Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday.”
Deakin said that the central belt was likely to see temperatures in the high 20s, while the Moray coast especially could see highs of more than 30C.
“The winds going over the mountains, coming down the other side, that dries it out and really heats it up”, Deakin explained. “So the temperatures on that Moray coastline could easily be into the low 30s, particularly on Sunday.”
Deakin said that a changing climate was seeing the poles warm faster than the equator, and the changing differential between the temperatures was impacting on the jet stream.
“Our weather is dictated by the jet stream. That's the basic fundamental of meteorology,” he said.
“The fact that the equator's hot and the poles are cold, that's what creates the jet stream in the first place. But what's happening with climate change is the poles are warming faster than the equator and so the temperature gradient across the two is actually lowering.”
At the moment, he said a heatwave was due to hit Scotland because of an “amplified” jet stream, which creates an area of high pressure over the UK.
Deakin issued a warning to people to stay safe during the coming high temperatures.
“There's loads of evidence to suggest that when it is hot, there are more admissions to hospital,” he said. “You do see an increase in fatalities.
“Even back in '76 – everyone quotes that summer and remembers it fondly because it was fantastic, but there was a big increase in hospitalisations then.”
The Met Office expert added: “It’s a build up effect as well, which is why again it's not just about the numbers on any one day. It's about how long these hot spells last, because that has a knock-on effect.”
