A sweltering 30C plume pulled into Britain by an “amplified jet stream” will explode into an “angry” eruption of hail-spewing thunderstorms.
The UK is braced for a “lively” week of weather with soaring temperatures to climax in a monsoon deluge.
Today marks the switch to steam-bath Britain as pressure systems align around the jet stream to pull in a pulse of Continental heatwave.
Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin said: “The jet stream becomes more amplified and more pushed to the north, and that means air coming up from the south.
“As hot air wafts its way from the south, we will tap into that warmth and that humidity and weather fronts will provide moisture and that spark to create thunderstorms.
“We are likely to see more widespread sunshine as high pressure builds for Wednesday, with weather fronts being kept at bay allowing warming air to waft northwards, so Wednesday will start to see temperatures ticking up widely with a lot of fine weather.”
Sudden soaring temperatures will plough vast amounts of energy into the atmosphere creating a thunderstorm powder keg.
Storms will start to kick off to the southwest tonight before another explosive heat surge ahead of the weekend.
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Temperatures are set to spike
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Southern parts could hit 30C by the end of the week, Deakin said, with sultry nights making sleeping a nightmare.
He said: “There are some angry looking showers to the southwest, and that is the first of our sets of thundery showers heading northwards, likely during Wednesday night.
“On Friday, there is a small chance we may even get to 30C, but it will be cooler where it is cloudier further west, and down to the southwest, another pulse of thunderstorms likely to spread north during Friday night and into Saturday, and this clutch of storms will be a little angrier with more lightning and a greater risk of hail
“It is definitely a lively week of weather.”
Heavy downpours threaten to dump inches of rain bringing an additional flood risk to parts of the country
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Heavy downpours threaten to dump inches of rain bringing an additional flood risk to parts of the country.
Thunderstorms, rather than ‘home-grown’, will be imported from the Continent with an angrier sting in the tail.
Jim Dale, meteorologist for British Weather Services and co-author of ‘Surviving Extreme Weather’, said: “This is pushing in from the Mediterranean which is in a heatwave, and thunderstorms are going to come in from France and across the Bay of Biscay.
“The risk of storms will be greater towards the end of the week, and depending on when these come, at some point we could see temperatures of 30C or higher, possibly bringing the hottest day of the year so far.
Southern parts could hit 30C by the end of the week, Alex Deakin said, with sultry nights making sleeping a nightmare
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“In the sunshine, we could see the highest temperatures in the southeast at the weekend.”
Jason Nicholls, lead international forecaster for AccuWeather, added: “A weather front will bring the risk of showers and thunderstorms towards the end of the week.
“The weekend should be drier and brighter, but we can’t rule out showers in parts of the country.”