The British Weather Service on Tuesday issued an “extreme heat” warning for this week, prompting the company that supplies London with water to announce imminent consumption restrictions.
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England experienced an unusually dry winter and spring, aggravated by the driest July on record in the South since 1935.
Suggesting a deterioration, the Met Office issued an orange heat alert for southern England and east Wales between Thursday and Sunday on Tuesday, with temperatures reaching 35 to 36 degrees Celsius.
The heat is expected to remain less extreme than July, when a peak temperature of over 40 degrees was recorded, which was unheard of in the UK.
In the south, the weather “will remain dry all week, offering no respite to the parched country, particularly in the south-east,” the Met Office warned.
A state of drought has not yet been declared given the extreme conditions, but local restrictions (banning watering gardens, washing cars or filling swimming pools) have already been announced across much of southern England.
But Thames Water, which supplies water to 15 million customers including the capital London, has warned against joining the movement without setting a specific date.
“Given the long-term forecast of dry weather and very hot temperatures expected this week, we expect to announce temporary bans in the coming weeks,” a company spokesman said.
Example of the current exceptional situation: The source of the Thames is dry and the river that crosses London only begins to flow around five miles further downstream, unheard of.
The hydrological agency warned on Tuesday that river levels in central, southern and eastern England are likely to remain “exceptionally low” into October.