BANK HOLIDAY BLAST IS A RECORD BREAKER
84
BRITAIN sizzled on a recordbreaking May Day Bank Holiday yesterday as temperatures soared to 84F (28.8C).
And millions made the most of the clear blue skies as they headed to seaside resorts.
The scorcher put the Spanish sunshine island of Ibiza (61F) in the shade, with temperatures peaking in Northolt, west London, yesterday afternoon where it nudged past the previous early May Bank Holiday record from 1995 (83.4F).
The May Day Bank Holiday was introduced in 1978.
With the thermometer reading higher than in Miami, around 250,000 headed to the beach in Brighton over the weekend while more than 100,000 descended on Bournemouth.
Seafront car parks were full by noon and the majority of the resort’s 3,000 deckchairs were snapped up by early risers.
Yesterday traffic queued for more than 15 miles from the south coast to the A31 in the New Forest.
And that was not the only place where people baked, as huge tailbacks formed on many roads leading to popular resorts.
On the railways, furious daytrippers faced horrendous journeys to Brighton after the mainline from London was closed due to engineering work. Passengers faced waits of up to two hours for replacement buses before extra vehicles were drafted in.
Overcrowding
Southern Rail, which runs trains on the main line from London Victoria to Brighton, told passengers: “It is strongly advised to not travel towards Brighton today.”
Meanwhile, travellers desperate to catch flights at Gatwick were horrified to be told: “Some trains running from London to Gatwick Airport will be cancelled to prevent further overcrowding.”
Airline passengers heading to southern France also faced delays and cancellations due to strike action at Marseille air-traffic control centre, which covers many Mediterranean destinations.
In Cambridgeshire one paraglider was killed and another seriously injured following a mid-air collision yesterday morning.
The surviving paraglider was airlifted to hospital in Nottingham with potentially life-changing injuries.
Temperatures are expected to cool slightly from today as the warm jet stream moves diagonally south east across the UK and is replaced by cooler air.
And the weather is to become mixed as the May 19 wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor draws near. But Met Office forecaster Charlie Powell said warmer spells were expected, most likely across the south and east of England. He added: “That bodes well for wedding locations.”