Yellow weather warning for thunderstorms as 25mm of rain set to fall in two hours
Thunderstorms are set to batter parts of the UK on Sunday before a potential third heatwave later in the week, the Met Office said.
The weather service said there is a mixed forecast for Sunday and Monday before temperatures are expected to climb back into the low 30Cs by the end of next week, raising the possibility of a third heatwave this summer.
Parts of East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the East of England are set for heavy rain, lightning and hail on Sunday, which could cause disruption to transport links.
The rest of the country is also forecast to experience cooler air, cloud and showery spells for the rest of the weekend and early next week, before temperatures begin to rise again.
A member of ground staff pulls off the cover protecting court 18 as the rain stops to fall on the sixth day of Wimbledon (Photo credit: Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP)
Marco Petagna, senior meteorologist at the Met Office, said: “The headline is a changeable theme to the next couple of days and then the weather will become more settled as we go into next week.
“It could well reach heatwave criteria again across England and Wales towards the end of next week.
“In the short term, it’s quite a mixed picture. There’s a lot of cloud around, and bits and pieces of showery rain around.
“Across the East of England, the weather could turn heavy and thundery and there’s a warning out for thunderstorms between 7am to 7pm, because of the unsettled atmosphere.
“We could see an inch or two of rain and several thunderstorms there on Sunday, and that showery scene continues into Monday as well, especially in the north and east of the UK.”
The Met Office said the cooler conditions are set to subside, with much of the country seeing more settled weather moving further into next week.
And temperatures rising could lead to a third heatwave – a period of three or more consecutive days of temperatures higher than a location-based threshold – this summer.
But Mr Petagna said it is difficult to predict the duration of the hot weather.
He said: “It looks like we will meet heatwave criteria again by the end of the week.
“The main uncertainty is how warm it does become and how long the increase in temperature lasts for.
“The trend to warmer weather, particularly across England and Wales, certainly looks pretty good going into the week ahead.
“It will start to feel a bit more humid in the week ahead and also night-time temperatures are going to start to pick up, so it’s going to become more uncomfortable for sleeping.”
People hold umbrellas in London to protect themselves from the sun (Photo: Rasid Necati Aslim/Anadolu via Getty)
Brighton beachgoers enjoy the seaside during warm weather last week (Photo: Carlos Jasso/Reuters)
As conditions dry up into the second week of July, the Met Office has warned of increasing heat and humid weather, with the potential for another heatwave lasting into next week.
Met Office meteorologist Zoe Hutin said: “Whilst it is difficult this far ahead to determine exactly how hot things could get next week and weekend, there is the potential that some parts of the country could reach heatwave criteria.”
This follows two weekends of heatwave conditions for much of the country in the final weeks of June, which was the hottest on record across England, with Faversham, Kent, hitting nearly 36°C last Tuesday.
To qualify as a heatwave, a location must reach or exceed a certain temperature for three consecutive days, 25°C in the west and north and 28°C in London and the surrounding counties.
Hutin said temperatures were expected to reach the high 20°Cs in the South East on Wednesday, with the potential for low 30°Cs on Thursday.
A farmer inspects rows of lavender as they come into season in Chichester, West Sussex (Photo: Andrew Matthews/PA)
She said hot conditions were expected to continue into the weekend because of an area of high pressure building from the West then stretching across the South and drawing in warm air from the Atlantic and Azores.
“Most likely it will be the South and East that see prolonged heat and thus could have another heatwave, but it is too soon to say exactly how high temperatures could get,” Huntin said.
This weekend and the start of next week will be cooler than recent days, she added, with “cloudier skies prevailing and bringing spells of rain at times, especially for western areas”.
“It will be drier overall in the East, though some drizzly outbreaks are still possible on Saturday, with showers on Sunday,” she said.
What is the definition for a UK heatwave?
According to the Met Office, the UK heatwave threshold is met when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold.
The threshold varies by UK county. The geographical differences reflect the differences in climate across the country.
The threshold temperatures have been calculated using the 1991-2020 climatology of daily maximum temperature at the mid-point of the meteorological summer (15 July).
