The UK’s first red heat warning has come into effect, with temperatures expected to reach 41C on Monday or Tuesday, breaking the country’s heat records. The heatwave has already caused school closures, transport delays, increased pressure on health services and calls from unions for flexible working options. “I’ve been a meteorologist for about 30 years and I’ve never seen the charts I’ve seen today,” Met Office chief meteorologist Paul Davies said. Human-caused climate change was the “additional push” behind temperatures reaching 40C in the UK, he said. Record temperatures in the UK “It worries me and my colleagues here at the Met Office very much that this kind of unprecedented heat could become commonplace by the end of the century.” An extreme heat warning has been issued for much of England for Monday and Tuesday, while an orange warning initially covers all of England on Sunday and extends to southern Scotland and Wales from Monday to Tuesday. The public has been urged to stay hydrated and watch out for vulnerable people, especially children and the elderly. Employees have been encouraged to work from home and while schools have been advised to remain open, many, including those without cooling infrastructure, are closing. Davies said colleagues in countries such as Spain and Portugal had described the scenes in the UK as “outstanding”. He said a “plume” of heat pushing across Europe was affecting Britain differently. A combination of that cloud and human activity that generates its own heat contributed to the high temperatures, he said. “I was talking to my colleagues in Spain, Portugal and France over the weekend and they described this heat as extraordinary, and they saw and observed amazing temperatures and, as I say, the brutality of this impact. “As far as the UK is concerned, the heat that has affected Spain, Portugal and France is different to us. So it is the activity of this plume, as well as our own heat production, that causes the particular problems.” Cabinet Office minister Keith Malthouse, who will chair a meeting of Cobra’s emergency committee in Whitehall on Monday, told the BBC’s Today program that “it’s a difficult 48 hours ahead”. When asked why the UK was not better prepared for the NHS, rail infrastructure and housing, Malthouse replied: “We are quite well prepared.” The government will “learn from what happens” in the next 48 hours, he added, “We absolutely need to adjust the way we build buildings, the way we operate and look at some of our infrastructure in light of what appears to be is an increasing frequency of these events.’ While the government said additional measures were being put in place for ambulance services, including more call operators and extra working hours, medical experts said traffic was “quite late in the day” and many hospitals were not equipped for extreme heat. Elsewhere in Europe, firefighters in Portugal, Spain, France, Greece and Morocco are battling wildfires that have destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of land and are expected to continue this week with high temperatures. Temperatures have soared to 47C in Portugal, 45C in Spain and are expected to rise above 40C in western France. Boris Johnson was accused on Saturday of being “missing in action” after he failed to attend a Cobra meeting to discuss the national heat emergency, instead staying at his country retreat in Checkers. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST When asked by Sky News if the Prime Minister had decided not to attend as he was due to leave office soon, Malthouse insisted the suggestion was “totally unfair”. “He understands that, I think that’s a very unfair characterization of the media around this particular issue. It’s my job to chair Cobra, it’s my job to coordinate across government and then be accountable to him, just as I did yesterday morning when I briefed him,” Malthouse said.
