Boris Johnson is awaited to become the new Prime Minister of the Britain; however, in the anticipation of their new leader being announced, Britons were seemed to be more interested in UK heatwave 2019.
As the temperature is expected to hit 39 C (102 F), it is not just the political landscape that has been gearing up in Britain.
According to Google Trends, in the last 24 hours, Britons have been searching for “London weather” in Google more than searching “new prime minister,” “Boris Johnson” or “Jeremy Hunt.”
More and more Brits have been searching for weather updates, such as “UK heatwave 2019” and “London weather.”
While waiting for their leader to be announced, journalists and reporters baked in the heat outside Westminster on Tuesday as temperatures soared to 33 Celsius (91.4 F).
On Twitter, the top trend in the UK on Tuesday morning local time was #heatwave; there were more than 15,000 tweets. And the second trend was #BorisDay, with just over 7,000 tweets.
Journalist Santhnam Sanghera tweeted, “The News: Boris Johnson becoming PM; Britain heading for hottest day in its history. Or to put it another way: we are literally entering hell.”
Britain’s weather service department tweeted, “We are expecting to break temperature records this week. Although not everywhere will see the headline numbers the heat will be widespread, peaking on Thursday.”
Weather forecasters said there is a 30 percent chance that Thursday’s heat could break all-time Britain’s temperature record of 38.5 C, which was recorded in August 2003.
According to Meteo France, Paris is also expected to break its all-time highest temperature of 40.4 C (104.7 F) on Thursday. Heatwaves are also expected in Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia.
In the UK, air conditioning is not widely available, which means Brits are preparing for hot and sticky commutes to work and sleepless nights.
Most houses in the UK do not have air conditioning. London’s subway network has no air conditioning on all lines. In the past, Britain’s temperatures have hit as high as 40 C (104 F) on the subway.