UK experiences ‘tropical night’ after hottest ever May day

The UK experienced a “tropical night” on Monday as the record for highest daily minimum temperature in May was broken for the second consecutive day. Temperatures did not fall below 21.3C on Monday at Kenley airfield, in south London, after the UK recorded its hottest May day since Met Office data began, the forecaster said. The country also recorded its provisional all-time hottest meteorological spring temperature when Kew Gardens, in south-west London, hit 34.8C on Monday. The previous all-time May peak stood at 32.8C, reached in 1922 and 1944. The Met Office listed 12 locations where the record was topped on Monday – ranging from Suffolk to Berkshire to Warwickshire – while 97 of its monitoring sites reached or surpassed 30C. The UK’s previous warmest May night was Sunday, when temperatures did not fall below 19.4C at Kenley airfield. “We have provisionally broken the UK record for highest daily minimum temperature in May … again,” the forecaster said. “Temperatures didn’t fall below 21.3C overnight at Kenley airfield, making it a ‘tropical night’ (no lower than 20C),” it added. “Remarkably, the record was also broken yesterday.” Bournemouth beach on Monday. Photograph: Simon Ackerman/ “In the past, heatwaves built and built and built and built over days and days and days, these now just develop so quickly,” the Met Office’s senior forecaster Greg Dewhurst said on Monday, adding that climate change was boosting the heat. …