The UK will be hotter than major Mediterranean tourist destinations this week, according to Met Office weather forecasts.
Brits love bemoaning the UK’s gloomy weather, with wind, rain and overcast skies keeping us wrapping up warm and hiding inside for months on end.
Even in summer, the weather is so unreliable, we lose our cool – and our t-shirts – to bask in the sun on our day-long heatwaves.
Otherwise we just hop on a budget airline flight and flee to the Mediterranean to catch a depression-beating tan.
But tough luck if you’ve booked an escape for this week, because the roles are set to be reversed.
Parts of the south and northeast of England are predicted to have temperatures up to 18°C.
That’s hotter than places like Nice on France’s south coast, Palermo in Sicily, the island of Malta, and even Algiers on the north coast of Africa.
‘We will see increasing sunny spells across the south, central and northern parts of England and Wales’, Met Office forecaster Oli Claydon said.
‘There will be highs of 16C and 17C in the early part of this week anywhere the sun shines.
‘There’s a chance of maybe scratching into 18C in the southeast and London. Wednesday will be largely settled.
‘There will be a good deal of cloud around to start the day but that will break up and lift and we will see some sunny spells developing up through the afternoon.’
But be warned – this sunny weather won’t last long.
Just like last week’s 21°C – the hottest day of the year, and warmest spring equinox since 1972 – quickly gave way to grey days and chilly nights, temperatures will drop again by Thursday.
Clayton said: ‘The real sort of change in weather really starts on Friday where we see more in the way of unsettled weather, with rain moving across all parts of the UK and also some quite breezy conditions with low pressure.
‘The weekend is looking to remain with rain in the forecast.
‘There could be sunny spells at times through the weekend but there will be large amounts of cloud around and outbreaks of rain as well.’
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