Britain passes 40C
The United Kingdom records 40 degrees for the first time, and infrastructure built for a cooler country fails.
- When
- Known to
- ± 12 hours
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
- Where
- Coningsby, United Kingdom · 53.0937° N, 0.1725° W
On 19 July 2022 Coningsby in Lincolnshire reached 40.3C, breaking the previous national record by 1.6C — an enormous margin for a national temperature record. Runways softened, rails buckled and the London Fire Brigade had its busiest day since the Blitz. Attribution studies concluded the heat would have been virtually impossible without human-caused warming.