Heatwave vs Hot Spell: What's the difference between heatwave and hot spell?

As we face the hottest day of the year, it's not technically called a heatwave... yet.

Transcript

00:00Today could quite possibly be the hottest 1st of May on record and we can really feel the heat

00:07here in Yorkshire but many people are mistaken thinking that today it's a heat wave well actually

00:15it's a hot spell technically anyway the Met Office basically a few years ago changed their

00:21definition because they never had an official definition of a heat wave and we all know rising

00:26temperatures due to climate change causes a lot of these so-called heat waves so rather than to

00:32call it a heat wave this is a hot spell now to be classed as a heat wave it's got to be a consecutive

00:39three days where different areas of the country so you're defined by your locality and has to reach

00:46its maximum temperature for three days consecutively or reach more higher and then it can be classed

00:52as a heat wave so we know where heat waves coming if a part of the country is exceeding or meeting

00:59its maximum temperature for three consecutive days so a one-off like today where some places could even

01:06experience 29 degrees celsius wouldn't class as a heat wave unless it happened tomorrow than the next

01:13day or it happened yesterday so that's what we actually officially call a heat wave according to

01:19the Met Office