Temperatures set to soar - and here to stay

Bethany Shaw and Amy Harper from Inverness have fun on Scarborough's South Bay.
Picture: Richard Ponter — Bethany Shaw and Amy Harper from Inverness have fun on Scarborough's South Bay. Picture: Richard Ponter

Parts of the UK will be hotter than Spain this week, with forecasters predicting temperatures could reach as high as 24C (75.2F) in London tomorrow - 10C (50F) above the average for the time of year, and two degrees above Alicante.

In Yorkshire, today is set to be the hottest day of the week, reaching sunny highs of 16C, with the weather cooling off towards the end of the week.

Today’s highs are a stark contrast to the weather on Sunday, which saw blustery showers over most of Yorkshire and even snow recorded over the Pennines.

Paul Mott, forecaster at MeteoGroup, said the weather will be “quite a bit different over the next few days.”

“It will certainly turn much warmer,” he said. “Across England and Wales it will be dry, bright and there will be lengthy periods of sunshine.”

And it looks set to last - after the Met Office confirmed that hotter-than-average temperatures are more than twice as likely than below-average conditions until June.

The predicted hot weather is the result of a plume of warm air heading towards the UK from the south west, coming from as far as the Azores Islands, Mr Mott added.

Last Friday the mercury hit 21.9C in St James’s Park in London. But with the heat came high levels of air pollution, with Yorkshire among the areas affected by poor air quality.

Asthma sufferers, people with heart problems and older people were advised to “reduce physical exertion”, particularly while outdoors.