UK bracing for torrential rain, thunderstorms, and flooding in parts
The Met Office predicts torrential rain, with potential for 20-30mm in less than an hour and up to 90mm in three hours in some areas, which could cause travel disruption and flooding.
This follows a period of high temperatures, with London forecast to reach 30C on Friday, and the incoming heat is described as more humid.
Several water companies, including Southern Water, South East Water, and Thames Water, are implementing hosepipe bans across various regions of England.
These restrictions are in response to exceptionally dry weather, with England experiencing its driest start to the year since 1976, and drought status declared in the East and West Midlands.
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Daily Mail
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Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane weather: Huge rain bomb explodes over the east coast as millions cop a drenching
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The Guardian
10 hours ago
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Weather tracker: deadly floods devastate northern China
At least 70 people have died in northern China after another bout of torrential rain triggered flooding, the latest in a series of extreme rainfall events in recent months. Between 23 and 29 July, Beijing and its surrounding areas recorded an average of 166mm, equivalent to the monthly norm. The suburban district of Miyun received the highest amount of rainfall, with 543mm recorded, equivalent to the region's annual average. The death toll included 31 people in a Miyun care home, 10 who were swept away in a minibus in Shangxi province, and eight people in a landslide in the city of Chengde. Floods also damaged roads and vital infrastructure, cutting off more than 130 rural villages and leading to the evacuation of more than 80,000 people from their homes. The increasing frequency of high-rainfall events in China has been linked to rising global temperatures; each degree in warming enables the atmosphere to hold 7% more moisture. Meanwhile, Japan is braced for Tropical Storm Krosa on Friday, which is expected to skirt past the south-eastern Kanto region via the Izu islands. Although Krosa travelled towards Japan during its initial north-westerly path, a forecasted change to a more north-easterly direction means the system is likely to avoid a direct hit. However, its close proximity to the Chiba region may bring 120-200mm of rain in 24 hours. This week, as much of Europe experiences below-average temperatures, parts of Scandinavia have been engulfed by unusually intense heat. Prolonged heatwave conditions swept the north of the continent in mid-July, driven by exceptionally high sea-surface temperatures off Norway's northern coast and a stubborn area of high pressure that brought sunny weather and sinking, compressing air. As a result, temperatures in Norway, Sweden and Finland rose 8-10C (46-40F) above seasonal norms and remained elevated for nearly two weeks. The Norwegian counties of Trøndelag and Nordland exceeded 30C for 13 consecutive days, including in Storforsheia, just north of the Arctic Circle. It was the warmest two-week period on record in several areas. In the past week, the heat has shifted north and east, easing across much of Norway and Sweden and pushing temperatures 10-15C above normal in Finland and north-western Russia. Temperatures in the upper 20s celsius are likely to persist for at least the next five days several hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle.
Times
12 hours ago
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How to remake our houses and cities for hotter weather
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The building services engineering specialist Dan Watt, director of sustainability at the civil engineers Civic, highlights a Birmingham apartment development where horizontal brise soleil fins were incorporated for shading and heat reduction in summer, but allowing lower winter sunlight through. • Heatwaves are hell in my new-build flat Deeper window reveals also help to reduce direct solar gain. Quick fixes include awnings and shutters. Internal blinds are another easy add. Baeli uses cloth dust sheets, strong hooks and bungee cord to fashion a makeshift blind for the hottest days: 'It works tremendously. I'm not ready to invest thousands on motorised blinds.' Ventilation is key to keeping homes cool, says Ian Pritchett, a physicist and the co-founder of the sustainable developer Greencore Homes. 'The best way to let heat out is by opening doors and windows, if safe to do so, early in the morning and/or late at night to let hot air out and cool air in. Maximise impact by creating natural cross-ventilation, opening opposite windows to create a good flow of air.' If you can, practise 'stack ventilation': 'This is where high-level windows or roof lights are opened as well as low-level windows. The hot air goes out of the upper windows while cooler air is drawn in through the lower windows.' Struggling to sleep in a heatwave? You're not alone. A study by Loughborough University in partnership with the BRE (Building Research Establishment) found that 4.6 million English bedrooms — some 19 per cent of housing stock — overheat in summer. 'Thoughtful layout plays a big part. Where possible we'll sometimes place bedrooms on the cooler, shaded side of the house, or even downstairs where it naturally stays cooler,' says Venetia Rudebeck, co-founder at the interior design company Studio Vero. You've got to be flexible if you're working from hom, says Baeli. 'In a heatwave you're not working where your desk is, you're working where it's coolest,' she says. 'In our house the ground floor has a lot of thermal mass, thanks to the party walls and tiles on the floor [it absorbs heat during the day, releasing it slowly at night]. I usually work at the top of the house, but when it's hot I migrate down to the kitchen table.' Even the smallest balcony or garden can be effectively cooled if you choose container-friendly specimens — such as dwarf field maple or the compact Juneberry (Amelanchier × grandiflora 'Ballerina'), says Dean Meadows, principal arboriculturist and tree risk lead at the ecology consultancy Arbtech. 'Start by noting where the sun strikes your home and garden at different times. Once you know which areas need protection from intense sunlight, choose a deciduous tree whose mature canopy will intercept those rays and whose roots can spread without causing damage.' Meadows recommends field maple or silver birch: 'These give dappled spring light and full shade through the summer, yet let winter sun through their bare branches.' Thinking about overheating when planning home design should become second nature, says senior project architect George Yallop at the design studio De Rosee Sa, who introduced multiple cooling techniques in a recent project in Dulwich, southeast London. 'The extension in our Garden House project was designed with passive cooling in mind,' Yallop explains. 'The extension itself is slightly elevated from the garden, enhancing airflow beneath and through the room, while full-width sliding doors allow the home to be completely opened once the sun has set.' Yallop added a narrow, solar-coated rooflight to bring in light without overheating, while mature garden trees were retained for natural shade and cooling. Being smarter about choice of building materials, is a straightforward way to address overheating, says Simon McWhirter, CEO of the UK Green Building Council: 'Each type of material is better or worse at controlling the speed at which heat passes through it. Lots of natural materials such as hemp or clay plasters are much better at slowing down the heat, so whether it's winter or summer, they are much better at keeping the heat in and keeping the heat out.' For some homes, from flats with single-aspect windows to period properties that can't be significantly altered, it's air conditioning. 'In a new-build tower, with apartments, you have to accept that even with all the improvements you can think of, fitting air conditioning will be the only answer [to overheating],' says Baeli. 'However, I do know someone who lives in such an apartment and made an agreement with their opposite neighbour that they would leave their front doors and windows open to encourage a cool flow of air.' Colombia's second-largest city, Medellín, has created an entire metropolis of shade with its Green Corridors project. This transformed roads and waterways into green cycling lanes and walkways connecting the city's parks, reducing temperatures in these areas by 3C. Meanwhile, in central Manchester, McWhirter cites Mayfield, a 24-acre brownfield site transformed into a 'pocket park' as a stand-out UK example of how green spaces can help to keep urban temperatures cool and improve general wellbeing. 'Nature is good at doing the heavy lifting,' he says. Also in Greater Manchester, at Stretford Kingsway, Trafford, part of a dual carriageway has been reclaimed into a green walkway and cycleway, with a shade-giving weeping willow tree and sustainable urban drainage. Blue corridors are urban bodies of water — rivers, canals, docks — which provide respite from scorching heat. Helping to reduce the temperature of the air around them, they also provide a chance to cool off (subject to pollution levels of course) with wild swimming, paddleboarding and other water sports. • Inside the model estate testing the government's plans for eco-homes One stand-out example is Eden Dock (formerly Middle Dock) in the concrete jungle of Canary Wharf, London, designed by the architectural partnership Howells and HTA. Surrounded by timber decking and lush planting, it connects workers and residents with surrounding water and nature. 'Urban trees act as natural air conditioners and serve as a critical nature-based solution to rising temperatures in towns and cities,' says Meadows. Trees work their magic in three ways: shading streets and buildings; evapotranspiration, in which trees draw water from the soil, releasing it as water vapour through their leaves to create a cooling effect; and by helping urban airflow, replacing warm, stagnant air with cooler air drawn from surrounding green spaces. US cities such as Los Angeles and Phoenix are coating roads with a heat-reflecting white/grey coating that can reduce the surface temperature by up to 9C. Standard asphalt creates a heat sink by absorbing huge amounts of sunlight then emitting it back into the air as heat. It's said that this super-thin coating works by reflecting sunlight away. Cities across India, plus New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Toronto in Canada are already painting rooftops with white reflective paint. It could work in London too. According to research published last year by University College London, this kind of approach is more successful at heat mitigation than green roofs, covered in vegetation. In London, it could lower outdoor urban temperatures by at least 1.2C. Increasing public tree cover helps to keep cities cooler, but it's expensive and planting is limited by underground infrastructure, says Tom Fox, associate partner at We Made That, a research, urban design and architecture practice. He adds: 'This means awnings and shade structures are important to providing sufficient shade to have a meaningful impact on temperatures.' In Seville, Spain, which in 2022 became the first city to start naming its heatwaves, Antonio Muñoz, the mayor at the time, ordered the installation of awnings across the city as part of a 'policy of shade', which also included planting 5,000 trees a year and building more public fountains. Parisians benefit from a network of more than 800 'cool islands', accessible city spaces including parks, misting fountains, swimming pools and museums, providing relief from vicious heat. There's even a mapping app, Extrema, to help residents find their nearest chilled outpost. 'These developments are necessary because Europe is warming faster than the global average,' says Elena Rivilla-Lutterkort, Savills's head of sustainability in France. 'Paris is working under an assumption that an average increase of 4C is a likely scenario.' In dense urban environments, heat emitting from buildings contributes to scorching outdoor temperatures. In Abu Dhabi, where the mercury can climb to more than 50C, architecture practice Aedas designed the twin 25-storey Al Bahar Towers using mashrabiya, an ancient Arabic cooling technique using honeycomb-like latticed screens. These 1,000 unfolding hexagonal shades have built-in sensors, responding to the sun. The architects estimate this reduces solar gain by more than 50 per cent, diminishing the need for air conditioning. Dubai also has district cooling. Water is collected and chilled at a centralised location and then piped into residential and commercial buildings. According to Savills, district cooling achieves energy-efficiency index ratings between five and ten times higher than conventional air-conditioning units.
