To be honest, we’re not sure we are prepared as a nation for two more months of this.
While the islands of Britain and Ireland are only divided by a little strip of water, they do tend to get slightly better weather than us most years. So while we have been burning up with temperatures in the very high 20s, the 30 degree barrier has already been breached there a few times of late.
Now, the question on everyone’s dry, cracked lips is ‘how long will it last’. Our own weather soothsayers, Met Eireann, reckon that we won’t have any significant rain for at least the next 10 days and the warm weather is set to continue until the weekend at least.
But over the water, one forecaster has stuck their neck out really, really far. The
Express carries quotes from a guy called Jonathan Powell, who works for Vantage Weather Services. The bold Jonathan reckons that the heatwave has lots of life left in it yet.
“There is not a shred of evidence [the heatwave] is going to end any time soon.
“The rest of July is showing a similar picture and now August looks like following suit, so we could be looking at another six weeks or more of this. Temperatures are just dazzling over the next two weeks at least, and in terms of historic heatwaves this is now looking like giving 1976 a run for its money. There is no sign of it cooling down.”
If that’s true, and let’s face it, it’s a big if, we still may not have the exact same weather over here. But even if Powell is half right, and we get a slightly watered down version of this forecast, then it should still be the best summer most of us will ever remember.
And if you are the superstitious type, yesterday was a rain free St Swithin's Day, which should mean 40 days of hot weather, which would bring us very close to the end of August.
Right, I'm off to cancel that holiday in Spain I booked…
