It was the hottest day of the hottest month on record – at least until this sweltering summer. I remember it well, because on 19 July 2006, my family and I moved from London to Somerset to begin our new life here.
The month began with what the cynics call “a typical English summer: two fine days followed by a thunderstorm”, and hailstorms across a swathe of the country, from Cornwall to Cumbria. By mid-month the rain had mostly gone, and on clear nights, parts of England experienced ground frost – as far south as the notoriously cold spot of Shawbury in Shropshire.
But the day we drove down the A303 to the West Country produced what was then a UK temperature record for July, the hottest since records began in 1914, when the mercury rose to 36.5C (almost 98F) at the Royal Horticultural Society garden in Wisley, Surrey. A few days later, central London was also suffering from the heatwave, with temperatures peaking at 34C.
In the rest of July there were scattered thunderstorms, the inevitable result of the heat. Many places experienced their warmest ever July, with above average sunshine and below average rainfall. My abiding memory is of spraying my children with water from the garden hose to keep them cool.
