Brits descended on UK cities and towns last night despite heavy rain and monster gales.
Photographs show young people in their glad rags and fancy dress as they continued to enjoy freedom from lockdown restrictions on nightclubs and pubs.
The hated "pingdemic" finally ended last Sunday so double-jabbed Brits no longer have to self-isolate if they’ve been in contact with someone with Covid.
Pubs and nightclubs said the rule had ravaged trade just as they were hoping to recover from a difficult year.
Rain lashed down across the country, including London, Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham, but the streets were full with partygoers.
A yellow warning for heavy showers and thunderstorms was in place throughout yesterday for most of the nation.
More than 39mm of rain fell in 24 hours in some spots, including in northern England. That figure is nearly half of the average rainfall in August for many places in the north.
But it didn't deter drinkers - as pictures show scantily-clad men and women on high streets in Leeds.
Others huddle under an umbrella in one snap taken in the same city.
Clubs’ revenues have soared since reopening on Freedom Day on July 19.
But the boss of Britain's biggest nightclub group has attacked Prime Minister Boris Johnson's “ludicrous” plan to make revellers show vaccine passports to enter clubs from September.
Peter Marks, chief executive of Rekom UK, said: "What do I do with staff who have not had double vaccines through their own choice? Ask them to leave?
"They'll sue me for unfair dismissal or discrimination."
The businessman, who runs 46 clubs across the UK, fears the rule would cause many young people would seek out illegal underground raves where there were no safety measures.
He told Mail on Sunday : "The genie is out of the bottle."
More rain is expected to lash across parts of the UK today and tomorrow.
It could even result in flooding, forecasters say. The latest weather warning covers the whole of the north and the south east. East Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, the east of England and London and south east England are feared to be worst hit with the fresh wave of downpours.
The Met Office says a yellow weather warning is issued when it is likely the weather will cause some low level impacts, including some disruption to travel in a few places.
But the long forecast for the Bank Holiday weekend is looking sunnier for the majority of the country.
A Met forecaster said: “It’s an improving picture.
"Mostly dry with sunny spells, best in the west where it will be warm or very warm. Cloudier and cooler in the north and east with patchy drizzle at times.
"The last week in August and into September is likely to be dominated by high pressure bringing fine and settled weather to the UK."
But on the same weekend last year, beeches across the nation were deserted as temperatures plunged to as low as 6C overnight.
It was one of the coldest Bank Holiday August weekends on record, a huge contrast to 2019 when the mercury hit 33C in the southeast at that time of year.
