If one believes the BBC headlines, the UK is heading towards its third heatwave of the year next week. “Third UK heatwave increasingly likely as 30C temperatures forecast” we’re told. Yet living in north west Cumbria, I’m still awaiting the first heatwave of the year, and despite the BBC headline, I’m unlikely to see it next week, assuming the BBC weather forecast is also accurate.

The problem with UK heatwave hype is the definition of a heatwave. Generally this is reckoned to be a period of days when the temperature is higher than normal for the region said to have encountered the heatwave. One definition is rendered thus: “A heatwave is a weather phenomenon defined by the ‘local cumulative excess heat over a sequence of unusually hot days and nights.’” The number of days and nights isn’t here specified. On the other hand, the definition offered by the Association of Healthcare Journalists tells us that “Internationally, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) defines a heat wave as a period of five or more consecutive days with daily maximum temperature exceeding the average by at least 5°C (9°F), relative to the 1961–1990 baseline.” That (five days with temperatures higher than the long-term average by 5C) would put a spanner in the works of those who are keen to up the ante in respect of heatwaves. In the UK, however, we generally seem to work to the definition offered by the Met Office:

A UK heatwave threshold is met when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold. The threshold varies by UK county, see the UK temperature threshold map below.

The map in question sets the threshold at 28C in London and counties immediately to the north of it, at 27C in a ring of counties around that core, 26C over counties immediately to the north and west of those, and 25C over the rest of England, almost all of Wales, all of Northern Ireland and all of Scotland.

Based on those temperatures, and the “three or more days” requirement, most of the UK didn’t experience the first “UK” heatwave in May 2026. In Cumbria, for instance, parts of the south Cumbria just eased up to 25C or 25.1C (or 25.5C in the case of Kendal) on Sunday 24^th May, with temperatures peaking at Kendal on Monday 25^th May at 28C (the hottest place in Cumbria) before falling away on Tuesday 26^th May. The north of the county, where I live, never made it to 25C in May at all (the highest temperature in Carlisle was 23C or 24C (depending on who you believe) on Monday 25^th May, well below the May record set there in 2016 (29.3C).

May 2026 was even worse in Scotland. According to the Met Office:

Scotland, while still experiencing generally above-average conditions, did not rank within its top ten warmest Mays on record, pointing to a more moderate temperature signal compared to other parts of the UK…Northern Scotland recorded the lowest average maximum temperature at 12.9°C…Northern Scotland also recorded the lowest average minimum temperature of 5.1°C…Northern Scotland recorded the least sunshine, with 137.2 hours. Lower than average at 78%….

So far as I can ascertain, only southern Scotland managed to exceed 25C for a single day. Edinburgh’s temperature peaked at 23.5C. Northern Ireland, similarly, managed (26.3C) to exceed the 25C threshold only on Monday 25^th May. No May heatwave there, then, either.

In fairness, much of the country did manage to achieve heatwave status in June, with Northern Ireland having its fourth-warmest June since records began in 1884. Interestingly, the hottest June day on the island of Ireland was in 1887, at least according to the BBC.

Scotland, too, managed to achieve heatwave status with temperatures achieving or exceeding 25C at Threave in Dumfries & Galloway from 23^rd to 25^th June inclusive and in a few other places. However, Scotland suffers from the same north-south divide that the UK as a whole experiences. So far as I can see, only Tyndrum achieved heatwave status in June 2026 in Scotland north of the central belt. Shetland’s June temperature appears to have peaked at 16.7C on 26^th June 2026.

Compared to Shetland, I suppose I shouldn’t complain about Cumbrian weather, but where I live we didn’t have a heatwave in June either. Yes, it was hot – very hot by Cumbrian standards – towards the end of June, but it was the requirement for three consecutive days of heat that let us down. Wednesday 24^th June saw temperatures dip after a hot Tuesday, and although temperatures went back above 25C on the Thursday and Friday, they fell away again on Saturday 27^th June (and it’s been cooler since then).

As for north Cumbria’s prospects of a first heatwave of the year, next week doesn’t look as though it’s going to cut the mustard. Where I live temperatures are set to peak (according to the BBC 14 day forecast) at 21C on Thursday 8^th and Friday 9^th July. I can’t see anywhere in Scotland with temperatures of more than 21C or 22C in the BBC weather forecast. That forecast expires on Wednesday 15^th July, by which time we’ll be halfway through summer, I won’t have experienced a heatwave, and indeed I won’t have encountered anything like 1976. I wrote the following on 21^st July 2022:

The summer of 2022 is of course only half-way through. However, by this stage in 1976 we were already remarking, where I then lived in the north of England, how hot and prolonged it was (and it still had quite some way to go). This year, by contrast, we’ve had a pretty poor spring, a thoroughly indifferent June, and two very hot days in July where I now live (in a different part of the north of the England, though on roughly the same line of latitude). The heatwave (do two days constitute a heatwave?) is over, and the following day saw pleasant summer temperatures (very low 20sC). It’s as well that we made the most of them, for looking at the 14 day weather forecast on the BBC website, all I see ahead is quite a lot of rain, and a highest temperature of 19C (with a few highs of 16C thrown in). By the time that forecast period is over, it will be August. It seems highly unlikely that the summer of 2022 will come anywhere close to the summer of 1976 in the UK as a whole.

History seems to be repeating itself.