Balmy Britain is officially hotter than Hawaii with some of the best Easter weather in 70 years — and Easter Sunday might even be a record.
Forecasters say the mercury could top 27C (81F) tomorrow in places, with soaring temperatures sending families scurrying to the seaside under cloudless blue skies.
Leading bookmaker Coral has cut the odds on Sunday being the hottest Easter Sunday on record in the UK into 1-2 (from 3-1).
Almost every part of the country will bathe in sunshine on Sunday.
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A plume of warm weather heading down from Turkey sent temperatures soaring to 25C (77F) on Saturday in London leaving places like New York (14C) and Madrid (18C) in the shade.
It was bad news for Brits who headed abroad for the holidays after storms ravaged parts of Europe including Spain and Portugal.
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The heatwave sent home tourism figures soaring with more than 750,000 expected to visit Cornwall over the weekend, 100,000 in Brighton and 75,000 in Blackpool and Bournemouth.
Nicola Goode from Bournemouth’s tourism team said Easter Saturday had proved a winner. she added: “There were already a lot of people setting up on the beach for the day at 8am.
“Easter weekend is looking very busy already.”
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The only part of Britain to suffer bad weather this weekend is the north west corner of Scotland – but even that is expected to have cleared away by tomorrow.
The Met Office say the UK’s warmest Easter temperature was the 29.4C (85F) recorded at London’s Camden Square on Easter Saturday in 1949 – which fell on April 17, three days earlier than this year.
The other warmest Easter weekend days include the 26.9C recorded at London’s St James’s Park on Good Friday in 2011 – which came three days later than this year’s Good Friday.
On that occasion temperatures also reached 25.3C on Easter Sunday and 24C on Easter Monday, both in the Solent.
Forecaster Helen Roberts said these last two top temperatures are “ones to keep an eye on and could be broken” this weekend.
But the hot weather has already claimed two victims after a mother-of-two and her friend died after going for a midnight swim in bitterly cold water near a beach in Aberdeen on Good Friday.
Mother Karolina Pisarska, 36, and Luiza Koniuszy, 22, were found face-down in the freezing North Sea after the taxi driver who drove them to the beach raised the alarm.
Police Scotland described the deaths as ‘tragic accidents’.
Meanwhile lifeboat crews in Blackpool, Lancs warned revellers cooling off in the sweltering Easter holidays to take care after plucking two swimmers who had drifted 200 yards into the Irish Sea on rubber rings.
And a Staffordshire bull terrier named Jesus was also rescued from a lake by firefighters on Good Friday in Sutton Park, Birmingham at about 14:30 BST, West Midlands Fire Service said.
Crews used a ladder and flotation device to retrieve him.
Britain’s unluckiest heatwave travellers on Saturday were trapped on a rail replacement bus between Bristol and Newport.
Mirror reporter Alan Selby, among those on board, tweeted: “It’s 43C, the air conditioning doesn’t work, and the fan above me is blowing air hotter than the sun.
“Perfect for this balmy weather! Thanks.”
Weathermen say the good weather is likely to worsen in some parts of the country on Tuesday and Wednesday with an increasing risk of thunderstorms in the southwest.
