© picture alliance / Anadolu | Rasid Necati Aslim
England is gearing up for the warmest day ever recorded in May, with temperatures expected to reach 35°C on Monday. This would break the previous record for May at 32.8°C by a whopping 2.2°C.
High temperatures are not only recorded for May in the Netherlands. KNMI expects temperatures just below 30°C for Monday and just above that for Tuesday, but in England they are adding a few more degrees.
A spokesman for the Met Office, the U.K.'s national meteorological institute, told The Guardian that the upcoming heat wave was "unprecedented for this time of year" and noted that records are usually broken by just a few tenths of a degree.
Sunday was already the warmest day in May in at least 79 years, with a temperature of 32.3°C measured at Kew Gardens. Nighttime temperatures are also breaking records. In Kenley in Greater London, 19.4°C was measured on Sunday night, the newspaper said: the night from Sunday to Monday narrowly missed becoming a "tropical night" (which requires temperatures to remain above 20°C), which has never happened before in May. Two tropical nights are now forecast for Monday and Tuesday, before conditions weaken on Wednesday.
Several areas of England can now officially be called as experiencing a heat wave, including places in London, Suffolk, Oxfordshire and Essex.
Weather forecasters warn that more extreme heat is likely this summer and beyond as the "super El Niño" begins to emerge. This climatic phenomenon amplifies weather phenomena, making heat waves hotter and more intense. Its full effects are expected to peak in 2027. Heat records will probably be broken worldwide at that time.
Illustration picture: © picture alliance / Anadolu | Rasid Necati Aslim