Large portions of England and Wales braced for considerable heat on Tuesday, with government officials issuing an alert for vulnerable people and meteorologists warning it would be the hottest day of the year so far. The heat in Britain may also stir up sweaty memories of a string of brutally hot days across the country in July 2022, when schools, doctors’ offices and museums shut their doors while the government urged people to work from home. In Britain, few people have air conditioning at home, and much of the country’s housing stock was built to retain heat. Transport delays in very hot or very cold weather are not uncommon. “Much of the U.K. is entering a warm or even hot interlude of weather, with some places in England and Wales likely to meet heat-wave criteria in the coming days,” Frank Saunders, the chief meteorologist at the Met Office, Britain’s national weather service, said in a news release on Tuesday.
