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For the same reason people enjoy and yearn for very cold weather in winter? How many on here would take another winter like 62/63 knowing how disruptive it would be and how many people would die - particular the elderly? A lot, I'm certain. December 2010 was bad enough. This is a weather forum and unless the only type of weather you ever want is mild and tepid then yes some people will struggle. We have no control over the weather so trying to make people feel bad for wanting heat is stupid. Besides - it's what, two days tops? Can't you grin and bear a couple of hot days? You get your desired weather nearly all year.

Could this be one of the hottest ever GFS runs? 20C 850T's getting as far north as Hull with 17-19C for nearly all of England bar the far north (and even there still 16C). Really just insane.

First 12 days of June had 131 hours of sun. Last 11 have had 32. Hasn't been very warm either. I don't understand why certain people welcome cold weather in winter with open arms but the thought of hot weather is met with recoil and horror. I also don't get why people look forward to winter in the UK when nearly every year is a disappointment - like the last two years. I mean, even up here we only got a few inches - in London they got a 2-hour slushy covering in January?! Where's the fun in that?

Perhaps not - but in Leeds, the temperatures prior to the actual heatwave itself were in the 18-24C range, so certainly not hot. Plus, the ground is pretty dry right now - we've had about 18mm this month. May was pretty wet admittedly but the year until then was dry - 11mm in April for example. I don't think we're going to get to 34C, but if the ECMs earlier charts came to fruition and we had 20C uppers all the way to Glasgow, I think some very hot weather would come about.

Yeah it's nice .. 20C with a bit of cloud knocking about. Would be higher if it wasn't for that useless chunk of cloud that obscured the sky about an hour ago. Considering that the BBC were going for a completely cloudy day, it's turned out brilliantly.

I think people severely underestimate the types of temperatures we'd get if such charts being churned out by the ECM came to fruition. Does nobody remember the early August 1990 heatwave? Here's the evolution of that spell.. 31 July - unremarkable, largely sub-10C. 3 days later.. again nothing ground-breaking, but temperatures reached the mid-30s widely across England with 850pha temps that were nothing exceptional.. 37.1C in Cheltenham, 36.5C in Cambridge, 34.4C in Leeds, 33.1C in Harrogate, 32.5C in Durham, 30.8C in Fife.. By the 5th, say goodbye.. By the 6th, 2C uppers flood down from the north..

Well, let's put it this way - 20C temps at 850hpa, as far as I'm aware, have never reached past the SE corner of the UK, so to get them up to Scotland would produce some silly high temperatures - however fleeting. Plus the rest of the run shows it remaining warm in the S and E of the UK. It seems unrealistic though.

This chart is so nice.. I could stare at it all day. However, I'm pretty certain 20C 850hpa temps have never reached this far north, let alone Scotland, so chances are it won't happen.

Well obviously it isn't causing a cool down in the UK because we've recorded our warmest year three times so far this century - but whatever warming is taking place is clearly not having much impact on summer temperatures. I worked out the averages for here since 2000 - every month has seen an increase in average temperature but that only tells half of the story. The biggest increase in temperature has been in April. The 1981-2010 average max in April here is 12.6C, but for the 2000-2014 period it's gone up to 13.7C. July and August have seen their average max temp increase only by 0.1C since the dawn of the century. June by 0.6C. May by 0.4C. September by 0.6C. The lack of very warm weather in June since 2011 is a little odd. It reached 31.0C in June 2011 but since then it hasn't reached 25C even once. The last time we recorded 25C in the second half of August was 2013 - more than once actually. Maybe you were just unlucky. Last 25C in May was 2012 here too. Last 20C in April was.. 2015. But we don't reach 20C every April.

Well, that's a little misleading - it says it may be slightly cooler than average in the west, but around or just above average in the east and southeast - very warm at first. So again, location dependent.

It wasn't really - at least not here it wasn't. June 2013 was rather poor but August 2013 was definitely on the warm side - not heatwaves but consistently in the 21-25C range with temps reaching 31C on the first day of the month, and average sunshine values - above average in Kent and East Anglia, so again location-dependent.

Another overcast morning here - but at least it's dry. Should reach around 18-20C.

Fingers crossed.

I'm pleased with the outlook. Forecast has highs of 21-24C for here which is fine by me. Also lows in the 11-14C range so hopefully goodbye to cold nights.

High twenties - extreme, hot? Only in the UK! Strange country.

Getting better but still far from a classic. When it's showing 30c+ for most of England and mid-high twenties for Scotland, I'll pay attention. In fact I'd love our record high of 34.4C to be threatened. That was achieved with 850pha temp of 16c.

2007 had some cracking thunderstorms here.

Well, I hope so - but seeing charts like the above don't fill me with much confidence. Seems almost impossible for very warm weather to push further north this year.

Like people do in winter you mean? I think we have a much better chance of getting some sustained warmth in July than we do sustained cold/snow in January.

Maxes for past 5 days here (including today): 22C, 20C, 16C, 16C, 20C. The week started off good, Thursday and Friday were total garbage, today was rather pleasant, tomorrow looks rubbish with highs of 16C. Next week is looking good though. I don't know what world Daniel is living in but his idea of the north seems to be based on some sort of windswept Pennine image. Daytime averages in Leeds are only about 2C lower than London in summer. If London is at 24C, 22C would be appropriate here. 24C in London and 16C here is not 'normal'. This is what a UK 'heatwave' (I use that term very loosely) should look like: One thing I've noticed is that Cornwall is nearly as bad as Scotland for getting very warm or hot temperatures.

No, I don't - stop putting words into my mouth. When I complain about the weather, I never make the assumption that it's the same everywhere - and if anything stress the point that good weather in the south does not equal good weather everywhere, as we have seen the past two days. Besides, your idea of 'good' is not universal, hence why I've seen people from your neck of the woods (Essex) complaining about how poor summer has been thus far - and it has been below average there as well, so no wonder.

You ask why people are complaining and then ramble on about the weather in your back yard - well, believe it or not, the weather varies from location to location! It's currently 13C, cloudy and windy here - so please forgive me for complaining.

Well, no, not really - August 2013 was the 42nd warmest out of 356 and was above average everywhere. Even August 2012 was fairly warm - if a little on the dull side - and let's not forget August 2004 which is the 12th warmest in the series and a very thundery month. Looking at the data here, nearly every day in August 2013 had a high of 20C or above - highest was 31C (highest of 2013), and sunshine was average. We had a few days of thunder/lightning too. A good month by my books. August has gotten a bad rap recently but that's because we haven't had a heatwave like 2003 or 1995, which is silly.

June was the warmest month in 1992, well above average, nearly as warm as June 2003 and June 2006.

Interesting - so quite mixed really. '92 and '93 were pretty bad, but 1983 and 2014 were alright - 1983 having that famously hot July.