If the provisional temperature measured in Surrey holds, it would be 0.4C hotter than the 2019 record before the UK has even got to lunchtime.

For comparison, around this time yesterday the hottest temperature was 34.8C, and the hottest point across the whole day in the late afternoon was 38.1C.

Forecasters expect the temperature to continue to rise through the afternoon, so this is very unlikely to be the last record exceeded today.

UK record shows stark reality of climate changepublished at 12:02 British Summer Time 19 July 2022

12:02 BST 19 July 2022

Justin Rowlatt
BBC Climate editor

The highest temperature ever recorded in the UK is certainly an important milestone but it is no surprise.

It was only a matter of time before the 38.7C record from July 2019 was exceeded, according to the Met Office.

It says extreme temperatures like this have been made 10 times more likely by climate change.

And they will become even more common in the future.

“In a few decades this might actually be quite a cool summer,” says Prof Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London.

So, adapting to cope with the new temperature realities is an urgent priority.

“We need to prepare our societies. We need to educate people how to behave in heatwaves. We need to redesign our cities and our homes,” says Prof Otto.

That isn’t happening anywhere near fast enough, say the government’s advisers on climate change, the Climate Change Committee.

There are more than 4.6 million homes that overheat, according to a recent survey – and that’s just in England.

"We've been telling the government for over 10 years that we are nothing like well enough prepared in the UK for the really hot weather we are seeing now," says Baroness Brown, the deputy chair of the CCC.

Heat-related deaths will triple in the UK over coming decades without government action on overheating in homes, she warns.

Simon King
BBC weather presenter and meteorologist

At 11 this morning, the temperatures were widely getting into the mid-30s and now we've exceeded the highest temperature ever recorded in the UK.

And there are still a few hours of hours of heating where temperatures in eastern England could get above 40°C.

For meteorologists, exceeding records by a margin of 2 or 3 degrees is a staggering thought when historically records were only broken by fractions of a degree.

It’s another sign of how climate change is bringing more extreme conditions.

Here's what the Met Office has said:

The UK has experienced its hottest day on record, with the temperature reaching 39.1C in Charlwood, Surrey, according to provisional Met Office figures.

The previous UK record of 38.7C was set in Cambridge in 2019.

The hottest place in the UK at 11:00 was Charlwood in Surrey at 37.3C in the shade, according to the latest Met Office figures, external.

That is only 1.4C cooler than the current highest ever UK temperature recorded in 2019 and 5C hotter than at the same time the day before at the hottest place in the UK.

For context, forecasters anticipate temperatures to peak in the afternoon today.

Kew Gardens clocked in at 36.9C and Heathrow was just 0.3C lower than that.

Temperatures above 36C have also been recorded in Wittering, West Sussex and Monks Wood in Cambridgeshire.

Image source, PA Media

Nikki Berry
Forecaster, BBC Weather

Image source, PA Media

There are a number of reasons why some parts of the UK can end up hotter than others.

Sometimes it is as simple as where has the hottest air above it or where has the most sunshine.

In this hot spell, a number of records were broken in areas which have had a long "land-track". Surface air heats more quickly when moving across land than sea, especially when the winds are light.

This week, the air has been coming from the south or south-west and so the warmest temperatures have tended to be across the Midlands, Lincolnshire and East Anglia.

Other factors such as urban heating (increased daytime warming in cities) and the Föhn effect (warming air as it moves down a mountain or cliff) can also have an effect - the latter helping the record-breaking temperature in Cornwall yesterday.

Image source, Met Office

The weather picture is looking very different for tomorrow.

A yellow warning for thunderstorms covering a large area of England has been issued by the Met Office, external.

It covers much of central and eastern parts of England, as well as London and large areas of the south between 13:00 and 21:00.

Yellow is the lowest of the three weather warnings issued by the forecaster.

While the Met Office says most places will see only small amounts of rain, there is a chance of some isolated heavy downpours and lightning.

Jessica Parker
Reporting from La Teste-de-Buch, France

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

Firefighters from across France are battling to control blazes that have destroyed nearly 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of land since last Tuesday - with more than 16,000 people evacuated yesterday alone in the Teste-de-Buch and Landiras areas.

The fire service are saying that they had a very difficult night, after what was a very difficult day yesterday.

You can see quite a lot of cloud and smoke because those fires are continuing to rage in those pine forests that lie on the coast along here in the area of Gironde.

Temperatures are dropping today after highs of more than 40C yesterday and the ground is dry after the heatwave, so challenging conditions still for those firefighters.

I spoke to senior French officials yesterday about when many thousands of residents might be able to return home and he was pretty frank - it could be days or it could be weeks.

Around five camps sites were destroyed in the blaze yesterday that run along the famous bit of coast line, the Dune de Pilat, which had already been evacuated earlier in the week.

Some holiday makers have lost caravans, things they had to leave behind. Smoke is seeping through these areas coming from the fires, brought by the winds, which means it’s just not safe to stay in certain areas.

The mercury is rising fast this morning, with Kew Gardens in London measuring 35.1C in the shade by 10:00, the Met Office has confirmed, external.

At 09:00 32.4C was recorded at Kew Gardens.

For comparison, yesterday the hottest place at the same time yesterday was 30C in Surrey.

Multiple places in the capital were also above 34C at 10:00 this morning, as well as Cambridge, which hit 34.2C.

Our colleagues at BBC Newscast have been looking at the heatwave and what we might expect in the future as climate change leads to rising temperatures in the UK.

Adam Fleming is joined BBC Weather presenter Matt Taylor and Dimitri Zenghelis, from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.

If you'd like to listen, click here.

Nick Miller
BBC Weather

Amid all the understandable focus on the likelihood that the UK temperature record will be broken today, there’s also a strong possibility that Scotland will see its highest temperature on record.

The record stands at 32.9C set at Greycrook in the Scottish Borders in August 2003. The hottest places in Scotland yesterday were Aboyne in Aberdeenshire and Leuchars in Fife, both with highs of 31.3C.

The UK provisionally had its hottest minimum temperature on record last night, with Kenley in Surrey never falling below 25.8C, the Met Office says., external

This represents an increase of nearly 2C on the previous highest minimum daily temperature of 23.9C.

The Welsh record has also been broken, with Aberporth never falling below 24.5C last night.

We previously reported a high of 25.9C in Yorkshire as a provisional figure, but are currently waiting for confirmation of that.

The BBC's Sarah Keith-Lucas talks us through the weather forecast for Tuesday as the UK braces for record temperatures.

Justin Rowlatt
BBC Climate editor

Image source, Getty Images

The Met Office estimates that the extreme heat we are seeing has been made 10 times more likely because of climate change.

This is happening when average world temperatures have only risen just over 1C beyond levels seen before many parts of the world became industrialised.

One degree doesn't sound much, does it? But we're living in the hottest period for 125,000 years, according to the UN's climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

We know what's behind this - the greenhouse gas emissions caused by our burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in our atmosphere.

Read more here.

There are multiple places that have already recorded temperatures above 30C this morning - far higher than this time yesterday.

By 09:00 it was:

• 32.4C in Kew Gardens, London
• 32.2C at Heathrow Airport, London
• 31.7C in Woburn, Bedfordshire
• 31.2C in Gwynedd, Wales

For context, at the same time yesterday Kew Gardens and Heathrow were both an astonishing 7C cooler than today.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has denied suggestions Boris Johnson has "checked out" early from his duties as prime minister and failed to adequately respond to the UK's heatwave.

Johnson, who resigned as Conservative leader this month but remains PM until his successor is appointed, did not attend last week's Cobra meeting on the heatwave and skipped yesterday's meeting too.

The emergency meetings were instead chaired by Kit Malthouse.

Speaking on Sky News, Shapps denied Johnon had "checked out", saying it is "literally not true... the opposite of the truth".

Ben Boulos
BBC Breakfast Business Presenter

An empty concourse at Kings Cross station is a rare sight. It normally serves 220,000 passengers a day. Not today though. During what is usually the morning peak period, it was virtually deserted.

The departure boards here tell the story of the massive rail disruption caused by the heatwave.

All services that run north out of here on the East Coast Main Line have been cancelled today. Some people have been caught out by it - mainly tourists. Those who I spoke to were hoping to get to Edinburgh, only to find their booked trains were not running.

Yet most seemed quite relaxed about the disruption to their plans. Hot, perhaps, but seemingly not too bothered.

Michelle Roberts
Health editor, BBC News online

While the temperature in the outside world can fluctuate wildly, our bodies strive to keep a stable core temperature for our internal organs to function well. That takes lots of energy to regulate.

On a hot day, your body has to work hard to keep cool.

Chuck in a bit of dehydration and poor sleep and it is no wonder you may feel a bit tired.

Fatigue is also your body’s way of telling you to slow down a bit - good advice when the weather forecast is warning temperatures could exceed 40C.

Remember to watch out for heat exhaustion and heatstroke - when your body is becoming dangerously hot. Heatstroke is a medical emergency.

Read more.

Image source, Getty Images

The UK cannot afford to live in an ever-changing climate, a scientist has told the BBC.

"In the south of Spain, they design the way they live to deal with these kinds of temperatures," Prof Myles Allen, a climate scientist at the University of Oxford says.

But buildings in the UK aren’t designed that way, he adds, and redesigning them to make them tolerable in the kind of summer temperatures the UK is increasingly seeing is going to be "extremely expensive".

“We cannot afford to live in an ever-changing climate – we have to stop this and turn this around."

He says it is likely yesterday’s heat record in Suffolk - the highest since 2019 - will be broken again today.

“That tells you how fast things are changing as the world is warming at a quarter of a degree per decade."