Jersey half-term heatwave set to end

There will soon be some relief from the extreme heat, with today (28 May) forecast to be the last of the current heatwave.

Jersey has experienced four days running above 28°C, with temperatures forecast to reach 31°C today.

However, it is due to get cooler from this evening.

Dave Rigby, Senior Forecaster at Jersey Met, said:

"This will be the fifth day that we've had 28°C plus, so that will be the fifth day in the heatwave criteria, but it does look as if later on today, towards evening time, the wind will shift - so rather than coming from the east or south-east where all the warm air has been coming, it will turn around and come more from west or north-west and that will introduce much fresher air for us, which I think many people will be relieved to hear!

"We've set May records on successive days. Earlier this week, the 34.2°C that we had was a record in Jersey, and Guernsey also set records for the May temperatures as well. It is unprecedented, to have so many hot days in a row is very unusual."

The heat has also led to issues at Jersey's General Hospital. Three operating theatres have had to close after a mechanical fault with the air-con, forcing some operations to be postponed.

Thousands of people have headed to the beaches to enjoy the hot weather, with RNLI lifeguards back on daily patrol.

Owen Graham said:

"We've had thousands of people swimming at St Brelade's throughout the last couple of days, loads of preventative action is going on, but still we're doing multiple rescues, loads of first-aid incidents, it's been really busy.

"The amount of people we've spoken to over these last couple of days, doing PAs all the time on our loudspeaker on our truck and we're telling people they're in a really dangerous position and they think better and we end up having to rescue them.

"Listen to lifeguards and you'll enjoy the beach.

Image Credit: RNLI

"Key messages from the lifeguards are always visit a lifeguarded beach, listen to our signs - we put loads of signs out every single day, we'd really appreciate it if you guys listen to them, it makes our lives a lot easier and it'll keep you guys a lot safer.

"Swim between the red and yellow flags, it's the safest part of the beach."

One of Jersey's hospitality bosses says the ongoing hot spell has brought both 'positives and challenges'

Marcus Calvani, co-CEO of the Jersey Hospitality Association, said:

"(The hot weather) spreads the spend. Those people who have no windows or are internally within the middle of town, they lose out when the weather gets this warm and those that are on the coast and the beach suddenly do better.

"We have a little bit of a spread and as an island, we don't unfortunately suddenly have more people or suddenly have more spending and at half-term, a lot of the time, a lot of our population actually go away.

"They will have already booked their holidays and been off somewhere else, they're probably regretting hunting for sunshine when it's hotter here than wherever they've gone, but that's the reality of life and the weather and the unpredictability of the weather that we see nowadays."