Curate’s egg for Easter as weather cracks UK in two
This Easter bank holiday weekend is weighted towards the front end. So those blue skies and 72F (22C) temperatures on Good Friday (when too many of us were stuck in traffic) were the peak of the good weather, though there is nothing too terrible looming today and tomorrow.
After last night’s “pink moon” – the monthly full moon that, legend has it, has a touch of pink to it in April – Easter Sunday is going to be a day that splits the country into two halves. In eastern England and Scotland, it will be dry and warm with plenty of sunshine, all the result of high pressure over the North Sea, bringing top temperatures of 68F (20C) around London, 64F (18C) in East Anglia and up towards Newcastle, and 63F (17C) in Edinburgh.
Over in the west, however, low pressure is pushing in from the Atlantic, with Northern Ireland and the west of Scotland bearing the brunt of the rain. The prevailing wind will be cool and so Belfast will struggle to do much better than 55F (13C), Glasgow 59F (15C) and Cardiff 63F (17C). North-west England and the west coast of Wales may, with luck, avoid the downpours.
Tomorrow, that low pressure will, it is anticipated, head off northwards and eastwards. So while the far north of Scotland may have to wait until it passes, elsewhere there should be plenty of sunny spells and the occasional shower, but the mercury will go down a notch or two in the face of a cooling wind.
As too often seems to be the way with bank holidays, the weather will wait until we are all back at work to show its best face. Tuesday will be dry and sunny and getting warmer, but towards the end of Easter Week a low-pressure system moving up from continental Europe could result in a cold easterly wind heading our way and making it feel not very spring-like.