The Met Office has said that England and Wales are bracing for another heatwave, with this one lasting longer than July’s record-breaking spell.

South of the Border highs of up to 35C are expected, however, this is likely to be much cooler in Scotland with temperatures of around 26C forecasted for Friday and Saturday.

Forecasters have said there will be a “prolonged” dry period in England and Wales over the course of the week and have urged people not to host barbecues in the tinder-dry conditions after 15 homes were evacuated following a garden fire that spread out of control in Essex.

What is the temperature for a heatwave in Scotland?

In July's heatwave, Scotland recorded temperatures of 35.1C for the first time. This was recorded at Floors Castle in the Borders.

The previous record was 32.9C, recorded at Greycook at the Borders.

A UK heatwave threshold is met when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold. The threshold varies by UK county. 

For Scotland, this threshold is 25 degrees.

Scotland Met Office forecast

The majority of Scotland will see temperatures in the early 20s, excluding the Highlands and Islands.

The first half of the week will be in the low 20s in places such as Inverness, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Ayshire and Midlothian.

As the weekend draws in, temperatures creep up to 25/26 in most places, before dropping back down to the early 20s for Sunday. 

You can see your local forecast on the Met Office website here.

Met Office heatwave forecast 

Parts of north-west Scotland may be cloudier and breezier up to Wednesday, but fine weather is expected for all areas of the country later in the week.

Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said: “It will be a lot of sunshine for a vast majority of the UK and also temperatures rising day after day.

“Not everyone will initially see those sunny conditions, but towards the end of the week even Scotland and Northern Ireland will join the rest of the UK in having generally fine, sunny and very warm if not hot conditions.

“It does look like a prolonged period of dry weather and obviously that’s bad news for southern England where some rain would really be useful now.

“In terms of temperatures we’re looking at them to build from 28C or 29C tomorrow to the low to mid 30s from Thursday onwards, so a fairly widespread heatwave developing across the UK this week.

“The peak of the temperatures look likely to occur on Friday or Saturday.”

He added: “The heatwave we saw at the end of July, that was relatively short-lived and saw exceptionally high, record-breakingly high temperatures.

“We’re quite confident temperatures will not go as high as they did during July, but the difference is that this is going to be quite a prolonged period of temperatures in the low 30s, so it will be very notable nonetheless.

“Heatwave criteria are likely to be met across many parts of the UK and there will no doubt be some adverse impacts from heatwave exhaustion, dehydration and so on, so we do anticipate some potentially adverse effects to the NHS and more vulnerable people having heat-related problems through this period of time.”

The Met Office has urged people to follow precautions to avoid becoming overheated, including closing curtains and windows during the day and avoiding the midday sun.