Britons beaming thanks to Bank Holiday sun... and more on way
BRITAIN enjoyed a rare event yesterday – a sunny Bank Holiday.
And to keep the smiles on our faces, forecasters reckon the warm weather is here for the week.
Temperatures yesterday reached 75F (24C) in Bournemouth and 74F in south-west London.
Now bookies have slashed the odds on a mini heatwave to round off the summer.
Ladbrokes put the chances of the thermometer reaching 86F before Sunday at 2-1, while Coral cut the odds to 7-4 on August being the hottest on record.
In Cambridge a banana tree has flowered for the first time at Christ’s College thanks to the sustained spell of warm weather – aided by its position in a sheltered walled garden.
Settled
A Met Office forecaster said: “We’ve had a brilliant Bank Holiday – lots of sunshine around, or decent sunny spells at least for a large chunk of the country.
“In fact in places we’ve seen wall-towall sunshine.
“The general story for this week is actually quite a fine and settled week across the country.
“There will be some spells of light rain at times, mainly for the north and west of the country.
“However, it looks as though it will be dry with some spells of sunshine too and towards the South and East it will feel quite warm as well. Not a bad week at all in prospect.”
Temperatures in the South could reach 79F today and around 75F tomorrow thanks to sunny conditions, with similar temperatures up to Friday.
Further north, temperatures are A frigate sets sail in the North Sea Tall Ships Regatta off Blyth, Northumberland likely to be around 66F due to cloudier conditions. But by the weekend the weather is likely to become more unsettled as a knock-on effect of Hurricane Gaston, currently east of Bermuda and gusting at up to 140mph.
The Met Office says it is on track to hit southern Europe or North Africa by the middle of next week by which time it is likely to have been downgraded to a tropical storm.
But it could cause unsettled weather for the UK, including wet and windy conditions, especially in the North and West.
A child was last night in a “serious” condition following a horrific two-vehicle crash on the M5. It led to the closure of the motorway in both directions near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.