Britain is bracing for a record-breaking heatwave this week, with temperatures set to surpass the historic June 1976 peak by several degrees Celsius.
The Met Office has issued a rare "red warning", anticipating highs of 39C across parts of the South and South East on Wednesday and Thursday. This would shatter the 1976 June record of 35.6C by more than 3C.
This extreme weather coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1976 heatwave, an event remembered for people putting foil over windows, forced use of street standpipes due to water shortages, failed harvests, and rising food prices.
Experts, who gathered to mark the anniversary, warn that such intense heat events will become increasingly common.
They highlight that the 1976 heatwave occurred in a significantly cooler global climate. Climate change, primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels that release warming gases, is making extreme heat both more frequent and more severe.
Looking ahead, a "plausible" Met Office forecast for June 2056 paints a grim picture, predicting peak temperatures of 45C in England, 38C in Scotland, 41C in Wales, and 30C in Belfast.
That future 14-day heatwave could see temperatures over 40C for nine days, they warned – something the UK has seen only once, in the record heat of July 2022.
Heatwaves and the hot dry summers they can occur in carry rising risks for people’s health and ability to work, learn and sit exams, for food security, dangerous wildfires, huge water shortages and impacts on the countryside and nature.
The future forecast was presented in the style of a TV weather forecast by presented and meteorologist Laura Tobin, at an event in London on Monday.
In the forecast, she warned temperatures in the high 30s and 40s were “dangerous for everybody”, and urged people to stay inside with the curtains drawn, seek out designated cool spaces if they did not have air conditioning, and stay hydrated.
Ms Tobin, who admitted at the event that she had cried after giving the forecast of 40C in 2022 because of the impact it would have on people, also said: “The idea that we will be living in temperatures of 45C unless we significantly reduce fossil fuel emissions is simply unimaginable.
“As a mum, that doesn’t feel like a weather statistic – It’s terrifying,” she said.
Professor Stephen Belcher, Met Office chief scientist, said: “Heatwaves in the UK are becoming more frequent and intense.
“This week’s red extreme heat warning issued today, as we mark the 50th Anniversary of the 1976 heatwave is a stark reminder of the trajectory we are on.
“The duration of the extreme heat combined with high humidity will present severe challenges for communities and the health of individuals.”
He said: “Weather is the national conversation in the UK and the summer of 1976 lives on in many memories.
“Since then our climate has fundamentally changed, with average UK summers having warmed by around 1.4C.
“Crucially extremes have changed too.”
Professor Ed Hawkins, from the University of Reading, said that “1976 was an extraordinary weather event, but it took place in a much cooler world”, and a comparable heatwave would be 3C hotter in today’s much warmer world.
He said: “The future 2056 forecast from the Met Office shows that people born in 1976 could plausibly suffer 45C heat in their retirement years and children born today in 2026 will have to navigate such heatwaves in their 30s when they may be starting their own families.”
Professor Hayley Fowler from Newcastle University said few people remembered the summer’s failed harvests, rising food prices, heat-related illnesses and deaths, and extensive wildfires of 1976.
“On the 50th anniversary of this iconic event, we are showing the public that these impacts will become part of normal life in the coming decades if we don’t rapidly reduce fossil fuel emissions and adapt our schools, homes, hospitals and workplaces to cope with the extreme heatwaves we face,” she said.
Emma Pinchbeck, chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, said the UK needed to carry on reducing emissions “because effectively it prevents a world we can’t adapt to”.
But, she told the Press Association: “Even with action to reduce emissions, this weird heat, these unusual weather events are the world as we will know it.
“This is going to be much more typical in the UK, even under 2C of warming.
“To make sure we’re protected from that, we need to roll out cooling particularly in places where there are vulnerable people, care homes and hospitals.
“We need regulations to protect workers, particularly those working outdoors in things like construction, and we need to make sure our infrastructure is fit for purpose, so things like our trains continue to run mostly on time,” she said.
