(Bloomberg) -- UK temperatures may hit 34 degrees Celsius (93.2 degrees Fahrenheit) this week, a once-rare level that’s becoming more common on the back of global warming.
Before 2017, the country had seen the mercury reach 34 degrees in June on just three occasions on record, according to the UK’s Met office. Since then, it’s happened twice and now could do so again.
The heat comes as even warmer weather sweeps across continental Europe, putting extra pressure on power prices as people turn up the air conditioning to keep cool. It’s also underscoring concerns about the need to tackle climate change, which is causing more extreme weather events around the globe and threatening to cause more deaths and worsen food security.
“Climate change has increased the average temperature of UK summers, and it is also increasing the likelihood of experiencing more extreme temperatures during hot spells and heatwaves,” said Mark McCarthy, head of the Met Office National Climate Information Centre.
Read More: Heat Wave Spreads Across Europe as Summer Highs Come Early
The UK’s weather service last summer raised the threshold for declaring a heatwave — triggered if temperatures exceed a certain threshold for three consecutive days — more stringent as hot weather becomes more frequent.
The Met Office expects some parts of the country to experience heatwave conditions this week, but that it won’t last for long, as a cold front moving in from the north this weekend could offer some relief.
Prior to 2017, UK temperatures reached 34 degrees in June in 1947 and 1957, as well as for three straight days in 1976 during a notoriously hot summer.
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