Unless you’re lucky enough to live in one of the UK’s rare air-conditioned homes, chances are you’ve been keeping an anxious eye on the weather forecast for the week ahead.

If current predictions come true, the warm weather we saw over the weekend will be a mere glimpse of what’s to come. As stands, daytime temperatures in many southern and central areas of England and Wales are forecasted to sit in the high 20s and early 30s all week long, and an Amber Weather Warning has been issued for Sunday when temperatures could be in the excess of 35 degrees in the southeast.

This means that the weather this week will officially meet what the Met Office calls ‘heatwave criteria’ –when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days when daily maximum temperatures meet or exceed the heatwave temperature threshold. This threshold varies from area to area, but it typically sits in the mid to high 20s; in London, it’s 28 degrees.

UK heatwave: as if we haven’t already sweated enough, temperatures are set to rise again this week