guardian.co.uk,
Lisa O'Carroll, Saturday 1 October 2011
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| Brighton beach on Saturday 1 October. The resort saw a 50% increase in calls to its visitor information centre. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images |
It's
official: it is the hottest 1 October since records began 101 years ago.
As
sunbathers packed the beaches across the country, the Met Office in London confirmed
the previous record for 1 October was broken at 13.27 in Gravesend, Kent, when
a temperature of 29.5C was recorded.
But
temperatures at this time of the year peak at around 2pm and by mid-afternoon
Gravesend was basking in scorching heat of 29.9C.
The
previous record for England was set in 1985 in March, Cambridgeshire, when
temperatures for 1 October reached 29.4C.
Lauren
Cherry, manager at the Rum Puncheon in Gravesend, said it was overwhelmed by
the spike in custom on account of the weather.
The pub
overlooks the Thames and Tilbury docks and has a large outdoor terrace and
patio area.
"We
were absolutely rammed to capacity," she said. "Everyone is talking
about how shocked they are at the weather for this time of the year. Normally
we would do about 10 to 15 lunches, but today we did more than 50."
A
forecaster at the Met Office said Wales had also set a new national record with
temperatures of 28.2C in Hawarden.
Saturday's
glorious sunshine has meant three consecutive record-beating days.
On Friday,
Cambridge set a new record temperature for the hottest ever 30 September with
29.2C, beating the 27.8C set in Maidenhead, Berkshire, in 1908.
And on
Thursday Kew Gardens in west London set another record with 28.8C – the highest
ever 29 September temperature, beating the mark of 27.8C set in York in 1985.
Sunbathers
packed the beaches and parks across the country as the nation made the most of
the exceptional weather.
In
Brighton, tourism officials reported a 30% increase in people clicking on to
the city's official tourist website, visitbrighton, and calls to the Brighton
visitor information centre rose by more than 50%.
The
unseasonally warm weather is expected to continue on Sunday, although rain has
already broken the dry spell in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The
Brighton tourism councillor Geoffrey Bowden said the boost in visitors was a
"welcome fillip" at the end of the summer season and helped support
the 13,500 jobs dependent on tourism in Brighton.
He said:
"Brighton and Hove always looks brilliant in the sunshine and it's no
surprise that visitors are heading our way to make the most of it."
The value
of tourism to a resort like Brighton is £732m. More than 8.5 million people
visit the East Sussex city a year.
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