Hottest day of the year so far as Cambridge tops 34C

The UK has seen its hottest day of the year so far after a temperature of 34.8C was recorded in Cambridge yesterday.

- ELLIE NG

The extreme heat came after a two-year-old boy died in hospital after being pulled from a canal in Wolverhampton during hot weather on Sunday afternoon, according to West Midlands Police.

A yellow heat health alert was issued for the East and West Midlands, east of England, South East, South West, North West and London by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) until 9am tomorrow.

Yesterday afternoon the Met Office posted on social media: “It’s been the hottest day of 2024 so far with 34.8°C recorded in Cambridge today. Provisionally this is only the 11th year since 1961 temperatures as high as this have been recorded.

“Eight of those years have been since 2000 and six of them have been in the last decade.”

Before yesterday, the hottest day of 2024 had been Friday 19 July when temperatures reached 31.9C in central London.

Police do not believe there are any suspicious circumstances around the two-year-old boy’s death after he was pulled from the water off Hendon Avenue in Ettingshall. Officers performed CPR on the two-year-old boy after being called at about 5.30pm on Sunday to a stretch of the Old Main Line canal in Ettingshall.