UK Heat Wave Leaves Britons Looking for Ways to Stay Cool

Europe|A Heat Wave Leaves Britons Looking for Ways to Stay Cool

As the sun beat down on the park where he was walking his dog, Gary Youssef described his strategy for keeping cool after days of — comparatively — sizzling London weather.

He keeps his windows shut and curtains drawn, and at night, he opens the windows to let the cool air in.

But he’s already thinking ahead to next year: Mr. Youssef has been seriously looking into fitting his home with air-conditioning, a relative rarity in Britain. If temperatures continue to rise, he may be keeping a lot cooler by next summer.

“A lot more of my friends now have air-conditioning,” Mr. Youssef said. “People wouldn’t have thought about air-conditioning five years or so ago.”

As the United States sweats through its own run of high heat, temperatures in Britain have been above the seasonal average for days. The country was forecast to officially tip into the first heat wave of the year on Saturday, with a high of 34 degrees Celsius, or about 93 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the Met Office, Britain’s weather service.

The average high for June is around 64 Fahrenheit, and many homes are designed to retain heat, given Britain’s historically cooler climate. But high temperatures have become more common in the past few years. And climate scientists have warned that heat waves will become more intense as the planet grows warmer.