(UTV | BRITAIN) – Trains slowed to a crawl. Schools and doctors’ offices shut their doors. The British Museum closed its galleries. Buckingham Palace curtailed the changing of the guard. And the government urged people to work from home.
Much of Britain took an involuntary siesta Monday as merciless heat filtered north from a fire-ravaged European Continent, driving temperatures close to triple digits Fahrenheit in many areas and reaching the hottest mark ever recorded in Wales.
Authorities placed most of the country under a “red” warning for heat for the first time in history, with the mercury hovering around 100 degrees (37.5 degrees Celsius) across London and the country’s south and Midlands.
Britain’s top reading, 100.6 Fahrenheit (38.1 Celsius), did not quite reach the record of 101.7 set in Cambridge in July 2019, but to a sweltering nation, that felt like a distinction without a difference.
On the London Underground, most lines are not air-conditioned, Georgia McQuade, 22, lugged a heavy suitcase as she made her way to Victoria bus station, where she planned to catch a bus home to Paris.
“The Tube is really hot right now,” McQuade said. But she added, “I don’t want to get an Uber, because using cars so much is what caused this heat in the first place.”
She expected to encounter even more ferocious temperatures in Paris, as a mass of hot air has baked Italy and Spain over the past week and fanned wildfires in France and other parts of Europe.
On Monday, French firefighters were battling two enormous wildfires that had torn through 55 square miles of dry pine forest in southwestern France over the past week, forcing about 16,000 people to evacuate.
For Britain, a nation known for its scudding clouds, frequent showers and temperate weather, the blast-furnace of Arizona-style heat was enough to disrupt much of the country.
In countries more accustomed to it, such heat might scarcely register. But essential infrastructure in those climates, from schools to public transportation to private homes, has been designed to deal with it, and people’s bodies are more acclimated to it.
In Britain, the houses, especially older ones, were built to retain warmth, and their residents are similarly outfitted.
Some train services were canceled while others ran at reduced speeds for fear that the rails could buckle.