The UK Met Office said provisional figures showed temperatures stayed above 25 C (77 F) overnight in parts of the country for the first time. Met Office forecaster Rachel Ayers said Tuesday’s highs would be “unprecedented”. “The temperature will be very hot during the day, before rising to 40C, perhaps even 41C in isolated spots across England in the afternoon,” he said. A huge swath of England, from London in the south to Manchester and Leeds in the north, is under the country’s first “extreme” heat warning, meaning even healthy people are at risk of death as the hot, dry weather that has Burned continental Europe last week moved north. The temperature on Monday reached 38.1 C (100.6 F) at Santon Downham in eastern England, just short of the highest temperature ever recorded in Britain — a record 38.7 C (101.7 F) in 2019. Tuesday is expected to be hotter. Average July temperatures in the UK range from a daytime high of 21 C (70 F) to a nighttime low of 12 C (53 F) and few homes or small businesses have air conditioning. Many people braved the heat wave by staying put. Road traffic was reduced from normal levels on Monday. Trains were running at low speed due to concerns about bent rails or not running at all. London’s Kings Cross station, one of the country’s busiest rail hubs, was empty on Tuesday, with no trains on the busy East Coast line linking the capital to the north and Scotland. London Luton Airport has been forced to close its runway due to heat damage. Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said Britain’s transport infrastructure, some of which dates back to the Victorian era, was “simply not built to withstand this type of temperature – and it will be many years before we can replace the infrastructure with the kind of infrastructure we could.” At least five people were reported to have drowned across the UK in rivers, lakes and reservoirs while trying to cool off. Climate experts warn that global warming has increased the frequency of extreme weather events, with studies showing that the chance of temperatures in the UK reaching 40C (104F) is now 10 times higher than in pre-industrial era. Drought and heat waves linked to climate change have also made fighting fires more difficult. Hot weather has gripped southern Europe since last week, fueling fires in Spain, Portugal and France. Nearly 600 heat-related deaths have been reported in Spain and Portugal, where temperatures reached 47 C (117 F) last week. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes and vacation spots in the Gironde region of southwestern France since forest fires broke out in pine forests a week ago.
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