Overview
- Provisional temperature readings this week set new May highs in parts of the UK, including 35.1°C at Kew Gardens and 32.9°C in Cardiff, after several very warm nights that strained health and transport services.
- The Met Office and Met Éireann issued yellow and upgraded orange thunderstorm warnings for wide areas, with forecasters warning that storms could cause torrential downpours, large hail, frequent lightning, strong gusts and localized flooding.
- Warnings came into force on Wednesday and cover much of Wales, parts of southwest England and multiple Irish counties, where authorities warned of possible travel delays, building damage and short‑term power loss in impacted locations.
- Meteorologists say the storms are driven by a shift in the jet stream and incoming Atlantic systems that should cool southern UK temperatures below local heatwave thresholds by Sunday and bring a more changeable pattern into early June.
- Similar rapid shifts are forecast elsewhere: New England is expected to fall from mid/upper‑80s to much cooler, showery conditions this weekend, and northwest India faces a Western Disturbance and advancing monsoon that will trigger thundersqualls, hail, dust storms and a 6–8°C drop.