UK records cruellest April day in years

Parts of the UK were experiencing possibly the warmest April day in almost 70 years with temperatures in the hottest spots possibly reaching 28C.

The balmy spell was set to peak in the south-east of England yesterday, where it was forecast to be hotter than Spain and Italy.

Temperatures were predicted to beat Wednesday’s highs of 25C in both Gravesend in Kent and St James’s Park in London — the warmest day of the year so far.

Sunny skies were set to push temperatures to the low 20s in most of England and Wales, but in the southeast thermometers hit 26C, 27C or 28C.

While they were not expected to challenge UK’s the warmest April day of 29.4C recorded in 1949, they were poised to beat the 2001 April high of 27.8C.

‘Beast from the east’

The heatwave comes just after over a month after the UK was struggling with snow and ice from the “beasts from the east”, which prolonged the winter well into March.

Five weeks later summer has come unusually early. Conditions will be mild across the UK, with Northern Ireland likely to push 19C in some parts and a peak of 20C possible in Aberdeenshire in Scotland, the forecaster said.

The hot weather far surpasses the average maximum temperature for April, which sits at 11.4C. The spell is caused by warm air from the Azores being dragged up towards the UK due to area of low pressure over the Atlantic and high pressure over western Europe.

Meteorologist Alex Burkill said: “There’s a fairly good chance of 28C, there’s about a 60 per cent chance. Quite widely we are going to see low 20s, and for many it will be a little warmer than Wednesday.”

Yesterday was expected to be the hottest day of the warm spell, with weekend temperatures dipping slightly before showery outbreaks on Sunday.