London weather & severe-weather warnings

The forecast above is live. Every figure — the temperature, what it feels like, humidity, wind speed and gusts, the seven-day outlook — is fetched straight from the Open-Meteo public forecast service the moment the page loads, for a point in central London at latitude 51.5074 and longitude −0.1278. There is no server in the middle and no account or key: your browser talks to Open-Meteo directly, reads the numbers back, and refreshes them roughly every ten minutes while the page is open. If the connection drops, the last saved snapshot stays on screen so you are never left staring at a blank card.

Open-Meteo blends several national weather models, including data that traces back to the UK Met Office and the European forecasting centre, into a single open feed. It is excellent for a quick, honest read of the day — should you take a coat, will the school run be wet, is it a cycling morning. It is not, however, an official warning service. When the weather turns dangerous, London is covered by the Met Office's national warning system, and that is the source you should trust for decisions about travel, flooding or heat.

Reading the severe-weather status

The badge under the sky card gives London a plain-English status at a glance. Most of the time it reads calm — nothing unusual is expected. It switches to a storm watch in brass when thunderstorms appear in the next few days of the forecast, and to a red severe weather alert when a thunderstorm is actually happening overhead. Treat it as a prompt to look closer, not as the final word. The Met Office issues the warnings that carry real weight: yellow means be aware, amber means be prepared, and red means take action — dangerous weather is expected and there is a risk to life.

Live lightning over London

The map below is Blitzortung.org, a volunteer network of receivers that detects lightning strikes across Europe in real time and plots each one within seconds. When a storm is passing over the South East you can watch the strikes land around the capital. It is a community science project rather than an official forecast, so read it alongside the Met Office rather than instead of it — but for sheer immediacy, few things beat watching the sky light up on a live map while the thunder rolls outside.

Air quality

Weather and air quality travel together in London: still, warm days trap traffic pollution, while a brisk westerly clears it out. The Mayor of London runs the city's air-quality monitoring and publishes live readings, forecasts and free health alerts. If you have asthma, a heart or lung condition, or you look after someone who does, it is worth signing up so you know before a high-pollution day arrives. Air quality is also the reason the ULEZ exists — cleaner vehicles, cleaner air.

Note: government.london shows an indicative live forecast for convenience only. It does not issue weather warnings and is not the Met Office or the Greater London Authority. Always follow official Met Office advice during severe weather.

Common questions