Britain’s mini-heatwave is set to run into Tuesday for most parts of the country with temperatures touching 20C after a cold start.
The warm weather, that saw many flock to beer gardens over the weekend as lockdown restrictions eased, is continuing into midweek for much of England and Wales.
It is not such a good outlook though for Scotland and Northern Ireland where there are likely to be clouds and light rain on Tuesday morning. This is then expected to give way to sunny spells as the day continues.
After a cold blast last week, sunseekers have been taking full advantage of the sudden change with the mercury shooting up.
“One or two showers are possible across England and Wales but for the vast majority here dry and fine with sunny spells," said a Met Office forecaster.
“It could be quite misty across eastern areas at first and some of these north sea coast [areas] may just stay quite misty throughout the day. "
He added looking at large swatches of yellow and orange on the map of the UK that "temperatures could get close to 20C in a few places.”
The temperatures though are expected to dip slightly as the week continues although it will remain mostly dry and fine.
Looking ahead to the summer and it is predicted to be the hottest for several years with temperatures hitting the 30s in May.
Jim Dale, meteorologist for British Weather Services, told The Sun: “There will definitely be some spikes of heat as we go into summer when I expect to see temperatures in the high 20Cs or even the low 30Cs.
“This is largely because of a balancing effect which, after the colder period of weather over the past couple of months, dominated by a northerly airflow, should revert and come from a more southerly direction. This will bring more in the way of hotter weather as we go through the end of spring and into summer.
“This summer could be up there with the warmer ones from the past ten years, it is more likely to turn out one of the warmer ones that to be cooler.”
UK 5 day weather forecast
Today
Cloudy in the west and north with some mostly light rain for Scotland and Northern Ireland. Colder conditions with brighter skies and some showers arriving in the far north. England and Wales seeing sunny spells and dry for the majority.
Tonight
Frost for the far north with wintry showers for Shetland. Patchy rain sinking south across northern England. Fairly cloudy ahead of this with some fog in the east and south.
Wednesday
Fine but cold for Scotland, Northern Ireland and northern England. Cloudier than recent days in the south but still dry for most. A few heavy showers in the southwest.
Outlook for Thursday to Saturday
Mostly dry and fine with variable cloud cover, the best of the brightness across western parts. After frosty starts temperatures recover to near average by day. Windy in the southwest.
