The UK has seen its hottest day of the year so far after a temperature of 34.8C was recorded in Cambridge. 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 until 9am on Wednesday.

On Monday afternoon the Met Office posted on social media: “It’s been the hottest day of 2024 so far with 34.8 degrees C recorded in Cambridge today. Provisionally this is only the 11th year since 1961 temperatures as high as this have been recorded. 8 of those years have been since 2000 and 6 of them have been in the last decade.”