I thought I’d do a bit of a blog about our hottest ever weather. After a very hot Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday the temperature on Wednesday returned to normal.
The weather models did a good job of picking up this unusually hot spell of weather a week or more in advance. It meant we could at least make some plans to try to deal with the anticipated hot spell.
We changed our allotment routine over the hot weather. Instead of visiting in the afternoon, usually the hottest part of the day we made morning visits. 
We didn’t fancy lugging cans of water about in temperatures of 30°C or more. Our watering plan was to get our priority crops through this hot spell of weather. Our potatoes have already given up and the haulms have died back mainly due to the dry weather rather than any hot weather. Before the hot spell, we had already decided to stop watering our potatoes and just accept whatever crop they manage to produce. All other allotment jobs apart from watering and a little bit of harvesting went on hold for a few days.
It’s true to say that for us the temperatures were exceptional. Sunday was the beginning of the hot spell with the temperature reaching 32.8°C (91.0°F) which is now in sixth place in my list of the top twenty days since 2010. Sunday raised the stakes considerably with a temperature of 38.4°C (101.1°F) which became the highest temperature I’ve recorded. The forecast was for Tuesday to be even hotter with the temperature predicted to reach 40°C for the first time in the UK. It turned out to be true with lots of places passing the 40°C mark. My weather station recorded a high of 40.4°C (104.7°F) making it the new hottest day and relegating Monday into second place after only one day.
Thankfully, the hot weather cleared away just as quickly as it arrived with Wednesday much cooler. We popped down to the allotment on Wednesday evening to water the greenhouse tomatoes and most of our crops appeared to have survived the “red alert heatwave warning” relatively unscathed. However, we still haven’t had a decent rainfall for several months so watering at the allotment will have to continue. I’ve added my table of the top twenty hottest days below. I expect it might be a while before Tuesday is toppled from the number one position.
Enjoyed this update. Our thermometer recorded 31.5C here in Edinburgh. Like you I am most worried about the lack of rain. Happily today I am stuck at home because the rain finally arrived yesterday afternoon and it is drizzly today!. I now appreciate how lucky we are here – Our potatoes (aside from the first earlies which I dug up after some leaves started yellowing) are still like a green forest. I will own up that I did water them once. Hope you are getting some rain too now.
Thanks, Martyn, I enjoyed knowing how you fared and comparing it to my experience with major heat. The plants do much better that the gardener
Hi Jane, the difference for us is that the hot weather doesn’t last very long. Today, Friday the temperature has struggled to reach 16°C (61°F) and it’s there’s been a fine drizzle all day. Not enough rain to do any good it’s just kept the leaves damp without ever getting through to the soil. It amounted to 1.6mm or less than 0.1 in. I’ve noticed there is talk of some more hot weather runs from the weather model for the first week of August but there is plenty of time for them to change. I can’t see people spending lots of money to cope better with a couple of hot days a year if indeed such temperatures do occur more often.