London recorded the UK’s hottest ever May temperature on Monday, with a provisional 34.8°C registered at Kew Gardens. The reading surpassed the previous May record of 32.8°C, set in 1922 and matched in 1944, and made the bank holiday weekend the hottest on record — beating the previous high of 33.3°C from August 2019.
Monday was the third consecutive day of record-breaking heat, with temperatures exceeding 30°C across large parts of the country. The Met Office confirmed that the UK also experienced a “tropical night” on Monday, with the highest daily minimum temperature for May broken for the second day running. At Kenley Airfield in South London, temperatures did not fall below 21.3°C.
Heatwave conditions
Under the Met Office’s official definition, a heatwave requires at least three consecutive days where daily maximum temperatures meet or exceed a county-specific threshold. By Sunday evening, those conditions had been met across eight locations in England: Heathrow in Greater London; Benson in Oxfordshire; Brooms Barn in Suffolk; High Beech in Essex; Kew Gardens in London; Northolt in London; Santon Downham in Suffolk; and Writtle in Essex.
The village of Frittenden in Kent reached 30.3°C on Saturday — the hottest day of the year at that point, though it was overtaken as the weekend progressed. The heatwave has been described by the Met Office as “unprecedented for the time of year”, with climate scientists calculating that the likelihood of breaking the May temperature record is now around three times higher than it would have been in a climate unaffected by greenhouse gas emissions. Experts warn that temperatures of 40°C could become average summer conditions in the UK by 2035, and that much of the country’s infrastructure was built for a climate that no longer exists.
Bank holiday activities
The warm weather drew huge crowds to parks, beaches and outdoor spaces across the UK. London’s parks were packed on Sunday as residents sought green oases to escape the city heat. Swimmers were seen in the sky pool near the US Embassy in Nine Elms, south London, and images from Bournemouth beach showed a patchwork of umbrellas and sunshades covering the sand.
On Monday, dozens of daredevils took part in the annual Cooper’s Hill cheese-rolling race in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, throwing themselves down a steep slope in pursuit of a Double Gloucester cheese wheel. The event, which dates back more than 600 years, was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The cheese is supplied by Smarts Traditional Gloucester Cheeses, a family-run farm. Injuries including broken bones are common, and the hot conditions added to participants’ risk of sunburn.
The UK Health Security Agency issued heat health alerts across England, with yellow alerts in some regions and more severe amber alerts in others, signalling potential pressure on health services. Public health advice urged people to stay hydrated, keep cool indoors by closing curtains and opening windows at night, avoid strenuous activity during the hottest parts of the day, and check on vulnerable individuals — particularly older adults, babies, young children, pregnant people and those with underlying health conditions.
Travel disruption
Saturday brought significant disruption at the Port of Dover, where new EU border checks — the Entry/Exit System (EES) — led to hours-long queues as temperatures climbed at the start of half-term. The EES, introduced in April, replaces passport stamps with digital records and requires biometric registration. On Sunday, French authorities temporarily relaxed some of the checks by invoking an emergency clause to ease processing times. Separately, several planned engineering works on the rail network coincided with the bank holiday weekend, causing reduced services and disruptions on lines including those serving London Euston, Liverpool Lime Street and the East Coast Main Line between York and Northallerton.
The dry, hot weather contributed to an increase in wildfire risk in some areas, while South East Water reported customer issues including outages and low pressure. Historically, May bank holiday weekends in the UK have ranged from warm sunshine to snow and strong winds — a sharp contrast to this year’s exceptional heat, which also stands out against the cold and wet conditions of May 2021.
