BRITAIN is baking in record-breaking May temperatures as high as 35°C with meteorologists warning today that climate change is the cause.

The temperature at Heathrow, west London, reached 33.5°C today, “provisionally beating the all-time May record,” the Met Office has said.

Parts of the south and south-east are set to rise further and hit as high as 34°C or 35°C today and tomorrow as heatwaves continue.

Sunday also brought a record-breaking high of 32.3°C at Kew Gardens, south-west London, and the warmest May night since 1944.

“We see these changes happening so much more dramatically,” senior Met Office meteorologist Greg Dewhurst said, adding that climate change is boosting the heat.

“In the past, heatwaves built and built and built and built over days and days and days – these now just develop so quickly.

“It’s huge sort of swinging temperatures, and obviously records being broken by day and by night, so it just shows sort of how extreme the weather can change, and how quickly it can change as well.”

He added that, as a result of climate change, all meteorological models are predicting “more extreme heat, more extreme weather events” and “hotter, drier summers – wetter, windier winters.”

Highs expected in parts of Britain were estimated to have topped temperatures in Lagos in Nigeria, Cairo in Egypt, and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam.

The heat is considered to be dangerous for some vulnerable groups including older adults as their bodies struggle to regulate temperature.

Age UK charity recommended staying inside during the hottest hours of the day, between 11am and 3pm, and having regular cold baths or showers.