London reached 35.1C on Tuesday, setting a new May temperature record just as the UK’s run of unseasonably hot weather began to break. Cooler temperatures and outbreaks of rain are forecast from Sunday, ending a spell that has left much of the country facing a sharp turn into a fresher, wetter start to June.
The timing matters because the change is arriving now, not later in the month. Cooler Atlantic air is already pushing in, temperatures fell to 24C on Sunday after reaching 30C on Saturday, and the first few days of June are expected to be lower still. For anyone searching London Weather today, the key shift is that the record heat is giving way to rain within days, with the biggest change expected as the new week gets under way.
Tuesday’s high at London’s Kew Gardens was part of a wider burst of record-breaking heat. England and Wales logged their hottest May days on record for two days in a row, with Cardiff’s Bute Park reaching 32.9C, and the UK Health Security Agency issued both amber and yellow heat health alerts for much of England. That is why the forecast feels so abrupt: a stronger jet stream is now steering areas of low pressure across the UK, and the weather pattern that drove the heat is being replaced.
Rain is expected to develop in most parts of the country on Monday, with the heaviest falls possible in the west. Tuesday should bring a mix of sunshine and heavy showers, with thunder and lightning possible, before more rain arrives on Wednesday and strong winds make it feel cooler still. By then, maximum temperatures are expected to be between 15C and 20C, a steep drop from the heat of just days earlier.
For some, the wet weather will come as relief. Gardeners and growers in southern and eastern England are likely to welcome it after months of dry conditions. But the same hot spell has already carried a grim cost. At least 14 people died during the heat after getting into difficulties in water, including a 15-year-old girl who died in hospital on Saturday after getting into difficulty in the sea off the Merseyside coast on Monday.
That leaves one question that still matters locally: how much rain falls over London itself, and exactly when the city feels the change most sharply. The forecast points to a cooler, wetter week ahead, but the capital’s own turn from record heat to steady rain will depend on how far Monday’s system pushes south.
