Hottest weather EVER – world record temperatures revealed including scorching 57C in California

BRITAIN and parts of the US are in for a scorching weekend, though neither nation will get close to these bonkers temperature records.

Scientists have been logging the sweltering highs and dizzying lows of our planet's climate for more than a century, with California's aptly-named Furnace Creek holding the current record for the hottest temperature ever.

UK temperature records

The UK may not reach the climate extremes of other countries, but it's capable of some stifling weather during summer heatwaves.

The highest temperature ever recorded in Britain is 38.7C (100F) at the Cambridge Botanic Garden, England, on 25 July 2019.

Met Office analysts confirmed a day later that the mercury inched above the previous record of 38.5C logged in Faversham in 2003.

Locals described the blistering day as like travelling through Death Valley.

Resident David Cambridge said: "Standing in the centre yesterday and you closed your eyes you could have easily imagined you had been transported to North Africa.

"The nearest I have come to feeling the sort of heat we had here was driving in Death Valley in 1981!"

The UK's lowest recorded temperature is -15.9C (3.4F) at Fyvie Castle in Scotland, according to the Met Office.

That icy day entered the record books on 29 December 1995.

US temperature records

In the US, the mercury rockets far higher – and lower – than it ever does across the pond.

At Death Valley, officially the hottest place on Earth, meteorologists documented a hellish 56.7C (134.1F) at Furnace Creek on 10 July 1913.

The reading at the California town has since been disputed by experts, but is still considered the highest temperature ever recorded by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

The undisputed highest temperature in the US was also logged in Death Valley. Thermometers there reached 54C (129F) in 2013.

At the other end of the scale, Rogers Pass in icy northern Montana holds the record for the lowest temperature ever reached in the US.

The mercury there hit −56.7C (−70F) on 20 January 1954, according to the WMO.

World temperature records

The hottest temperature ever noted was, as mentioned above, the 56.7C (134.1F) reading at Furnace Creek in July 1913.

That's disputed by some meteorologists, who have cast doubt on the accuracy of the equipment used to take the reading.

If ever proved inaccurate, the record would instead go to Death Valley (54C [129F] on 20 June, 2013) and Mitribah, Kuwait (54C on 21 July, 2016).

Unsurprisingly, Antarctica takes the crown for the world's lowest ever temperature.

The mercury there sank to −89.2C (−128.6F) at the Vostok research station on 21 July, 1983.

Europe temperature records

Athens, one of Europe's hottest cities, holds the record for the continent's highest ever temperature.

Thermometers in the Greek capital soared to 48C (118.4F) on 10 July, 1977, during an unusually sweltering summer.

Europe's lowest recording is −58.1C (−72.6F) at Ust' Shchugor in Siberia, Russia.

That was logged on 31 December 1978 when the region was still under Soviet rule.

In other news, a USA-sized hole in the Ozone layer is shrinking and is now the smallest it's been in three decades.

A bonkers Swedish scientist recently claimed that eating human corpses could solve the global warming crisis.

Some scientists have a plan to stop climate change by hacking Earth's weather with a giant floating aerosol can.

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