Prepare for a nip at the heels of scorching run
IT would be a reasonable assumption if you were in training for the London Marathon (which, I should make clear I’m not – at least this year), to prepare for cloudy, possibly rainy, warm-butnot-too-warm conditions.
The average temperature for this annual event is between 54-59F (12-15C). If that’s been your training plan, though, you are going to have to put it in the bin for today. As ever, our weather is a fickle friend – or foe – and the mercury could touch 73F (23C) on the streets of London today, topping the current marathon record of 72.7F (22.6C) in 2007.
Elsewhere, the taste of summer will be souring slightly when compared with the past few days, especially the further north you go. Low pressure to the north and west of us will be pushing in, drawing colder, wetter air from over Iceland. Yesterday it was 64F (18C) in Glasgow. Today it will be more like 54F (12C), with showers. Belfast looks unlikely to climb much higher, though it should be drier.
The flow of warm southerly breezes will endure slightly longer in the south, but by this evening the high pressure that brought us the hottest April day since 1949 on Thursday is shuffling out of our orbit. It may even go out with a bang as it heads towards Spain. There is a chance of thunderstorms in southern England.
By tomorrow, those wetter, cooler conditions will be taking over everywhere and setting up the pattern for the rest of the week. Temperatures will be closer to the April average and there will be plenty of showers. But the sun won’t be wholly absent and, with the dominant wind direction westerly, then the warmest places will be on the sheltered east coast.
But don’t get your hopes up. After such a chilly March, the sea is colder than usual at this time of year and will take time to heat up and become a benign presence. Expect a nip to the air anywhere within shouting distance of a beach.