Records fall Hottest UK June day as temperatures top 35C all over Europe

The UK and Switzerland recorded their hottest ever June temperatures yesterday, while brutally hot conditions supercharged by the climate crisis were linked to the death of a third toddler in France and a surge in medical emergencies across Europe.

- Damian Carrington London Ashifa Kassam Madrid

The new provisional high of 36.4C (97.5F), recorded in Yeovilton, Somerset, surpassed Wednesday’s record of 36.1C in Gosport, Hampshire, which had beaten the previous peak of 35.6C set in Southampton in 1976.

Earlier, the Met Office said a sweltering night in Cardiff broke another heat record for the country. Temperatures only fell to 23.5C overnight in the Welsh capital, the highest minimum ever recorded in June.

A wildfire on Tintwistle Moor, near Glossop in Derbyshire, forced road closures and smoke warnings as fire crews tried to bring it under control. The blaze had last night burned through more than 500 sq metres of moorland and woodland, with thick plumes of smoke affecting the villages of Tintwistle, Hollingworth and Woolley Bridge.

Dramatic drone footage posted on social media by Derbyshire Fire & Rescue Service showed a dense area of woodland rapidly burning as smoke poured into the sky.

In Switzerland, the national weather agency said temperatures had exceeded 37C for the first time in June, breaking a record set in 1947. “A temperature of 38C was even recorded at the Basel weather station” - the same place where the 1947 record was logged, MétéoSuisse said on social media.

Scorching heat stretched across much of western Europe, with at least 101 million people expected to see temperatures above 35C yesterday, according to Agence France-Presse.