And so the summer sunshine continues…
What a stunning weekend it has been. High pressure has meant that all parts of the UK have been bathed in sunshine, with temperatures well above average for this time of year.
The hottest place over the weekend was Hurn on the outskirts of Bournemouth, where the temperature reached 29.7C (85F) – making it the hottest day of the year so far.
Heathrow airport ran a close second at 29.5C, followed by Southampton at 29.2C. Wales had its hottest day of the year so far, with Cardiff hitting 28.3C.
With the jet stream well to the north of the UK at the moment, low pressure is being steered towards Iceland, taking the wind and rain there, leaving us to have a decent spell of summer weather.
The last time we had a prolonged spell (more than a few days) of summer sunshine was back in July 2006, when the temperature reached 28C somewhere in the UK every day for a fortnight.
Whilst we are unlikely to achieve that during this fine spell, there’ll still be some great weather to come this week.
How long is it going to continue?
In a nutshell, the sunshine and warmth is going to continue this week. However, as always, there will subtle changes in which places see the highest temperatures day by day.
Although high pressure will remain more or less over us, it will tend to drift westwards a little in the coming days.
This will allow weather fronts to sneak around the top of the high pressure and potentially bring some cloud to northern and eastern areas. However, away from North Sea coastal areas, the cloud will be broken, so there’ll still be sunny spells.
At the end of the week, the high pressure will drift further eastwards again, cutting off the feed cloud, with a return to higher temperatures and greater amounts of sunshine.
How hot will it be?
England and Wales will start the week with temperatures of 23-29C, dropping to 18-25C midweek, before picking up to the mid to high 20s again for Friday and the weekend.
Scotland and Northern Ireland won’t see the temperatures fluctuate quite as much, with a general range of 19-26C, although it may be cooler at times for northern Scotland as cloud increases from time to time.
Sunshine and heat aside, the UV and pollen levels are likely to be high for much of this week – something to bear in mind if you are outdoors for anything length of time.
Don’t forget, there’s more on the Channel 4 Weather website. I’ll also be tweeting updates on Twitter – @liamdutton