UK heatwave horror as schools send pupils home ahead of forecast to break 50-year heat record

UK heatwave horror as schools send pupils home ahead of forecast to break 50-year heat record The UK temperature record for June of 35.6C is forecast to be smashed this week, as schools close early and Brits are warned against all but essential travel ahead of the heatwave Britain is forecast to break a 50-year heat record as scientists warn our heatwaves will become more intense. Schools across the country are closing early as the country is set to smash the 35.6C temperature record for June by Wednesday, set in the summer of 1976. The mercury is forecast to hit 36C in London and parts of the South East on Wednesday and could have reached as high as 39C in places by the end of Thursday. Transport bosses have warned against all but essential travel while scores of schools across England and Wales announced will close or finish early this week to protect children from overheating classrooms. Pupils have also been told they can wear PE kit rather than full school uniform. Buckingham School in Buckinghamshire is one which announced it will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday, and asked students to take part in online learning. In a statement on its website the school said: "Because most of our buildings cannot be cooled adequately and there is little shade outside, we have taken the difficult decision to close the school site on both days. All trips and other scheduled activities are also cancelled." It is happening on the 50th anniversary of the infamous heatwave when water supplies ran short, harvests failed, food prices rose and people put foil over windows to keep out the sun. Professor Stephen Belcher, Met Office chief scientist, said: "Heatwaves in the UK are becoming more frequent and intense. This week's red extreme heat warning, as we mark the 50th Anniversary of the 1976 heatwave, is a stark reminder of the trajectory we are on. "The duration of the extreme heat combined with high humidity will present severe challenges for communities and the health of individuals. Weather is the national conversation in the UK and the summer of 1976 lives on in many memories. Since then our climate has fundamentally changed, with average UK summers having warmed by around 1.4C.” A red weather warning for extreme heat covering an area stretching from London to Swansea and Somerset to Birmingham was issued by the Met Office from 9am on Wednesday to 9pm on Thursday. Jake Kelly, the deputy chief executive of Network Rail, said: “Extreme heat can have a significant impact on the railway, so safety must come first. We’re asking passengers to check before travelling on Tuesday, and only travel if absolutely essential on Wednesday and Thursday if they are going to, from or within the red warning zone as temperatures are expected to peak.” Chiltern Railways, which runs between London and Birmingham, has already cancelled more than half of its normal timetable. Britain has also issued only its second ever ‘heat-health’ Red Alert over the coming heatwave. The UK Health Security Agency has put six regions under the red heat-health alert from 1am on Wednesday until 11pm on Thursday. These are the West Midlands, East Midlands, South East, South West, London and East of England. An amber alert has been issued for the North West, North East, and Yorkshire and the Humber for the same period. Health chiefs are warning NHS and social care services to be ‘prepared’ insisting that forecast temperatures pose a risk to life for “even the healthy population”. Temperatures for the latest heatwave are likely to overtake the June record set in Hampshire in 1976 by several degrees and could come close to the UK's all-time high of 40.3C which was measured in July 2022. Professor Hayley Fowler from Newcastle University said few people remembered the summer's failed harvests, rising food prices, heat-related illnesses and deaths, and extensive wildfires of 1976. "On the 50th anniversary of this iconic event, we are showing the public that these impacts will become part of normal life in the coming decades if we don't rapidly reduce fossil fuel emissions and adapt our schools, homes, hospitals and workplaces to cope with the extreme heatwaves we face.” Professor Ed Hawkins, from the University of Reading, said that "1976 was an extraordinary weather event, but it took place in a much cooler world ", and a comparable heatwave would be 3C hotter in today's much warmer world. He said: "The future 2056 forecast from the Met Office shows that people born in 1976 could plausibly suffer 45C heat in their retirement years and children born today in 2026 will have to navigate such heatwaves in their 30s when they may be starting their own families."