Is the heatwave hotter than the summer of 1976?

My son was born on early June of 1976. I remember pushing the Silver Cross to the baby clinic to have him weighed. It was so hot I dressed him in only nappy, pants and little vest. Putting the hood slightly up to shade from the sun. And a sunshade at the other side
When I arrived all the babies were beautifully dressed and I felt awful.
However when nurse took my son to weigh him she held him up and called out ….Ladies….this is how you dress a baby in hot weather. I was beaming.

2003 was hot all over Europe and the UK too.

Maximum temperatures
Many parts of Europe saw their temperature records broken during this summer, including the UK. A sweltering 38.5°C was recorded in Brogdale in Kent on 10 August 2003, a record high which still stands today

We were away in Cornwall for a couple of weeks but I remember phoning home and they said how sweltering it was there. We at least had some sea breezes.

in 1976 the heatwave started when I was in the maternity home and went on for nearly 3 months - temperatures were 90F (32C) in our back garden and we had standpipes on the ready in the street but luckily never had to resort to them.

Looking at my front lawn now it is green - back then the lawns were brown for weeks.

I remember it raining for the first time in mid-September and our toddler DD looking out on it in astonishment, wondering what it was!

Burrator was so low you could could walk well into where the water usually reached. We all hunted avidly for the drowned village,
Yes, we were worried in case it dried up completely!

Sar53

The heatwave of 1976 went on for weeks of relentless hot days. My eldest daughter was born in June and the last month of my pregnancy was unbearable.

1976 drought/very hot weather went on forever, the parks and 'greens' were all brown.

Yep.Im sure the temperature was higher but it just went on and on and was so draining. DD1 was just one and we had very little water as the peaty area around our house burned for days & what water there was was used to fight the fires. We ‘entertained’ Ghurkas and their green goddess for days on end at the top of our garden. It was such a relief to have them guarding ours and a few neighbouring properties until it got so bad that we evacuated to my parents for a week. We returned and the heavens opened soon afterwards leaking through the kitchen roof where the Ghurkas were sheltering. They thought it hilarious ?

I never found 76 too hot, despite commuting to central London. I remember 2018 being hot for a long time. I struggle with any heatwave since menopause. I was always cold when young. I wonder if others here are the same?

Summer of 76 went on for weeks being hot everyday and no rain at all. I remember loving it back then and often getting out my mums sun loungers and lying out to sunbathe.
This heat we have now seems hotter and overnight the temperatures hardly fall, I never used to lie with a fan on and wake up with damp pillows. As for getting any sun loungers out
there is no chance I get overheated outside after ten minutes
and that is even sitting underneath the huge garden canopy.
I enjoyed the 76 heatwave sorry I can't say the same about this one.

Summer of 76 went on for weeks .
There were water shortages with stand pipes that people had to queue at for water to try and regulate the amount of water used by households and people were told to share a bath(no showers then!)
I can only remember returning home from work on the bus feeling like I wanted to melt, soles of my feet burning in my 3 inch heeled sandals!
My bosses at the time several times asked the office juniors to bring back ice creams/ice lollies on their way back from lunch the cost for which was either from out of their pockets or petty cash.
I think that these days we are bombarded with so much information about the weather that we start feeling hot from the day before! Can't remember ever having the weather warnings before either!

I remember emptying the bath to water the garden. Weren't we told to share the bath water or was that another time ?

I've just been chatting to my hairdresser about this. She remembers visiting the UK in the summer of '76 from her home in North Africa. While everyone here was bemoaning the heat she went around wearing a cardigan!!

76 was unusual but we get short heatwaves every year now!

We bought our first house in 1976.

Since it was bought off-plan we watched it being constructed from the footings upwards. The excitement and thrill of it all was dampened by what I now call the “buckets of cold water brigade” and their many many comments that the ongoing drought would cause there to be untold structural problems in the years to come.

45 years on and the property still stands and is as perfect now as when it was built.

eazybee

It was the length of time in 1976; I don't recall the temperature but I do remember the baked landscape and the dried-up lawn; baby son was crawling and the spiky grass pricked his little knees.
The previous year, 1975, was very hot as well and I remember the discomfort more because I was pregnant, and spent the summer months wearing shortie nightdresses because they were cooler and looser.

Yes, I remember this. It was the first year we went abroad. I was 15. When I got home, my friend was more tanned than me. It had been hotter here than in Mallorca where we were?

No, we were younger and dealt with it better. Since menopause, I don’t think my body knows how to be cold! My husband will change in the evening, from shorts to longer trousers. I don’t want anything on, except the fan?.

I started going out with my husband in 1976, and remember it being in the 30’s. Degrees that is. No problem kissing and cuddling. Now....it’s way too hot for that!

I was another pregnant one, my son born in July. It seemed to be never ending, went on for weeks.

Hopefully this lot will break down at the weekend. But my son informed me last night that his friend who is a weather follower said next week won't be too bad but the heat will return for about 10 days at the begining of August. I hope he got that wrong!

I remember being on playground duty one day in the summer of 1976 and being bitten by a ladybird! It must have been desperate for liquid.

There was also a very hot spell in the late '40s. My parents went camping in Dorset and, because of the heat, my dad drank a lot of cider. He said that he was perspiring so much that he didn't get drunk. The photos certainly show him looking very tanned.

At least I'm not in a "hot" area..
Arizona summers (for example) are difficult at the best of times. Many places will be much hotter.

Before we married, DH and I went on holiday together for the first time (both families disapproved) to the south coast in 1976.

Yes it was hot, everywhere parched but one of my abiding memories is of the fires and burnt areas in the New Forest.

I did my first set of nights as a student nurse in summer of 76, on a male orthopedic ward, all those hot and sticky patients not able to sleep at night and me not able to sleep in the day. Then went on Holiday in September to Devon and the weather broke!!

I remember being pregnant with my first child and being cosseted at work, i was I a suppose an office junior, certainly all my co workers where much older. Even the men who i looked on as elderly uncles or even grand dads would fetch me cool drinks and make sure i put my feet up during the lunch break. Oh how i wish i could go back to those days. I loved those people i worked with they made me feel special and cared for. Happy days......... wipes away a tear.

Everyone has said what I remember, the brown spiky grass, the ‘save water, bath with a friend’ mantra that we used to chant.
Burrator was so low you could could walk well into where the water usually reached. We all hunted avidly for the drowned village, until a local man said, “You don’t want to believe all that rubbish. It’s just to entertain the tourists.”
Summer 1976 went on and on.

The reservoirs in Mid Wales were very low, one could see the ruins of the buildings which had been flooded .

I remember the parched landscape in 1976 and being invaded by swarms of ladybirds! Collecting washing from the line was scary as the headlines said the little creatures would bite and there they were .. all over the clothes!

It was the length of time in 1976; I don't recall the temperature but I do remember the baked landscape and the dried-up lawn; baby son was crawling and the spiky grass pricked his little knees.
The previous year, 1975, was very hot as well and I remember the discomfort more because I was pregnant, and spent the summer months wearing shortie nightdresses because they were cooler and looser.

I remember 76 it lasted much longer this has only been a couple of weeks. I was 17 and working in Woolworths on the confectionery counter we had to keep most of the chocolate in the stockroom to try to stop it melting away
We went camping August Bank Holiday and the heavens opened digging trenches round the tents to stop them flooding
Didn't bother me then but what does at 17 now I huff and puff when trying to do household chores