1911 United Kingdom Heat Wave

A group of girls wade into the Serpentine in London’s Hyde Park to keep cool during the heat wave.

The United Kingdom heat wave of 1911 was a particularly severe heat wave and associated drought. Records were set around the country for temperature in England, including the highest July temperature of 36C (97F) in Epsom, Surrey only broken 79 years later in the 1990 heat wave.

The heat wave began around early July and ended 2 and a half months later, in mid September.

By 17 July temperatures were already 27C (80F) and by 20 July there had been no rain for 20 days, meaning a drought had officially begun. In the height of the heat wave, at the end of July, temperatures were 33C (92F) in Kings Lynn, breaking all previous records in that area. The heat wave and drought continued into August, with temperatures up to 81F on 1 August continuing throughout the month in London. Even into September, the heat wave was still continuing, with temperatures up to 33C (92F) in early September.

The heat wave and drought only ended on 11 September when average temperatures dropped by 20 degrees Celsius and the high pressure dominating the country receded, allowing rain over all parts of the country.

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Heat Shock In Bridlington

The glass and cast iron construction might have been a spa back around the turn of the last century, but when I was last in Bridlington it was a concert hall. And in the hot summer of 1980 you could easily die of heat shock inside it.

Back then I was traveling around England and Scotland on several occasions with a good friend and on one of these we had this almost surrealistic trip to Bridlington with an English friend of my then girlfriend and this friend’s half-witted mother. The mother was a music teacher and one of her former pupils played the violin in that night’s attraction, Edvin Harpers Orchestra. And to this day I’ll swear that the Edwin Harper’s drummer slept through the numbers in which his efforts were not needed.

We spent a lot of our travels taking pictures back then, and when Edvin discovered our voluminous photo bags and thought we were from the press, he had a very hard time directing his orchestra, playing the xylophone and flashing the widest, wildest, most exaggerating smiles at us.

In spite of the luke warm fish and chips seasoned with dog hair washed down with equally luke warm tea in a steaming hot Ford Escort earlier in the evening it was a rather memorable day, in a surrealistic way :-)  – Ted

Image found at “Edwardian  Era”

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