It’s Been Quite Warm

I’m looking out of the window at the sunshine, the strong breeze and the fluffy clouds and realising that today is the first day for a while, that I’m not melting. It has, in anyone’s view of the United Kingdom, been on the sweltering side of quite warm for a sustained period. And I’m old enough to remember the summer of ’76 where the roads melted and so did your ice cream — in a matter of seconds.

Now in 1976, the fifteen days of glorious sunshine, with temperatures of 32°C and more, were largely due to a particularly stubborn system of high pressure that stalled over Britain and couldn’t be bothered to start its engine again. So, it stuck around, shifting any of the far more typical, damp, grey weather, off to the North.

If we then fast forward today, there were many discussions and grand statements about our latest heatwave outdoing the one in ’76. As it turns out, it depends entirely on how you look at it. Yes, individual temperature records were shattered with the casual disregard of a toddler playing with a vintage tea set. We saw 37.7°C in Norfolk, 35.9°C in Wales, and a localised but deeply intense 450.3°C in our neighbourhood chip shop.

However, the summer of ’76 still holds the title for sheer, bloody-minded persistence. Back then, the heat built gradually and then simply refused to leave, like an unwanted houseguest who has settled into your favourite armchair and started doing the crossword in pen. It managed fifteen consecutive days of cooking the nation. By comparison, 2026 is still very much an apprentice in the art of sustained atmospheric hostility; it has delivered only ten such days, and even those weren’t speaking to each other.

But what 2026 lacks in stamina, it more than makes up for in dampness. In ’76, the air was polite enough to wring itself out over the Atlantic before arriving. This year, the high-pressure system seems to have developed a profound issue with humidity, dumping a thick, clingy soup over the midlands that renders the human cooling system entirely ornamental. At night, the air is heavy enough that your electric fan doesn’t actually cool you; it merely hurls the existing ambient misery at your face with slightly more aggression than the rest of the bedroom.

But before you continue your grumbling about feeling warmish, spare a thought for the Venusians on Venus. Their planet is without doubt, the hottest in our Solar System. It has a surface temperature of 465°C, so hot enough to melt lead. To make a mug of tea, they merely hold a mug outside for 0.06 seconds and then pop the tea bag in.

And why is so warmish on Venus? Because it has a thick, toxic atmosphere. It consists mostly of carbon dioxide, which traps heat in a greenhouse effect that simply doesn’t care how warm it gets. Combined with dense, reflective clouds made of sulphuric acid, the atmosphere acts like a heavy blanket that prevents heat from escaping back into space. It is the best cosmological example of holding in a fart I can think of.

Also bear in mind, that the atmosphere on Venus is about 93 times what it is on Earth. So, having a little stroll on the surface would be like being under water — half a mile down.

So you see, there is little point complaining when it gets quite warm here on Earth. Our nearest neighbour, sometimes, a mere 24 million miles away, is in a constant state of being in a heatwave. Sure, the Venusians can brew their tea far quicker than we can. But eating an ice cream is simply impossible.

All of which brings us back to Earth in 2026 and being warmish for a short spell during June and July. Next time it is warm enough that you need to wring your shirt out, remember, on Venus, your tea mug would have to be made out of titanium to stand of a chance of not collapsing under the pressure.