Hundreds of schools are closed today as a rare red extreme heat warning comes into effect until Thursday evening.

Red and amber heat warnings cover much of central to southern England and Wales. Daily highs are very likely to break the existing June high of 35.6 °C.

As a result, close to a thousand schools are fully or partially closed today. Meanwhile, travel has been disrupted with multiple train lines reporting delays or cancellations. As part of the heat warnings, non-essential travel is discouraged to reduce this disruption.

On the continent, the heat dome is also resulting in disruptions impacting the UK with the Eurostar running a reduced service between London and Paris until Friday.

Paris itself is forecast to hit 41 °C on Wednesday, while in western France power outages related to the extreme heat is exacerbating the impact of the conditions.

The heat will ease from the weekend as the heat dome finally breaks away reducing highs back to the low to mid-20s across the country.