It’s a balmy start to what could be a record challenging day.

This morning’s visible satellite says it all!

A beautiful clear sky Ireland and UK wide this morning, with exception of Scotland but this is breaking up.

Yesterday saw France and Britain’s warmest day of 2016.

We saw 27.3C at Mount Dillon yesterday, marking Ireland’s warmest day of the year.

The heat held well into last night with 28C in London at 8pm, 26C at 9pm, 24C at 10pm, 22C at midnight.

Paris was still 28C as of 10.30pm.

However, 10pm and Bilbao, Spain, was still at 35C!

Temps bottomed out in the 17-20C range this morning across the UK but it was up at 25 to 26C as of 9.30am, this sets a very warm base for what will be a hot day.

Think it’s a warm start to the day here, try the north coast of Spain at 5am this morning!

FEATURE IMAGE CREDIT: Carbon Brief

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As of this writing, Paris is already back up to 30C.

Heathrow is already back up to 28C and rising!

Mid-30s is expected mid to0 late afternoon between Birmingham and London.

Though not quite as extreme, today’s chart is similar to exactly 10 years ago today, 19 July 2006. Until July 1, 2015, this was the UK’s hottest July day on record.

Spain’s hottest so far this year is 44.5C recorded at Cordoba, this could well be beaten this afternoon.

Another Shot At 30C For Glasgow?

At the peak of the July 2013 and 2014 heat, Glasgow was forecasted to hit 30C, both summers failed but with 28.6C in July 2014 did see the warmest day for Glasgow since July 2005. Today is another day in which we could get close to 30C. I believe the last 30C in Glasgow was July 1983, I was just 5 MONTHS old then. The all-time record for Glasgow is 31.9C set back in July 1975.

As warm as today might be, this warmth is extremely short lived, barely a 2-3 day affair compared to the persistent warmth of July 2013 and 2014. 2006 hands down beat 2013 and 2014 with double the amount of 21+C days.

Twofold ‘Bad Night For Sleeping’!

There is two reasons why tonight may present a lot of tossing and turning. 1) the warmth and 2) storms with plenty of thunder, lightning, hail and torrential downpours.

These forecasted overnight minimums are near to the average maximum for this time of year.

If this forecast was to hold true, we could see some places record their warmest night on record.

Powerful Thunderstorms Tonight

With the Bay of Biscay low lifting north into the hot, increasingly humid and unstable atmosphere over the UK, CAPE values soar late this afternoon and evening over the UK.

This setup has the potential to generate the most lively and energetic thunderstorms across Scotland in at least a decade tonight!

See today’s video.

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