Tens of thousands of festival-goers will head to Somerset for Glastonbury 2022 this week. The much-anticipated festival returns on Wednesday for the first time in three years after the pandemic forced organisers to cancel twice.
Sir Paul McCartney, Billie Eilish and rapper Kendrick Lamar will headline the Pyramid stage, while Diana Ross will fill the Sunday teatime legends slot. Hundreds of other artists, including US pop star Olivia Rodrigo, Lorde and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, are set to perform across dozens of stages over the weekend.
Glastonbury attendees are being told to pack "sunhats and raincoats" this year with some high temperatures predicted as well as some showers. Met Office Deputy Meteorologist Helen Caughey said: “There will be plenty of sunshine on Wednesday across the South West, although there could be a bit more cloud later in the day, and temperatures will reach 26C or 27C. The dry, sunny and warm theme will continue through Thursday."
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However, from Friday onwards the weather will become "more unsettled". Ms Caughey said: "There is a risk of heavy showers and thunderstorms in the Glastonbury area on both Friday and Saturday, although these should be quick moving, some surface water might accumulate at times. Temperatures will start to dip as we go through the end of the week returning to near normal for the time of year, with highs likely around 18-20C.
“Sunday is expected to be mostly dry and bright at first but with showers once again developing through the morning, some of which could be heavy, and possibly thundery. The unsettled pattern is expected to continue to dominate into the start of next week.”
Glastonbury 2007 holds the record for the festivals wettest day. 60.1mm of rain fell in a single day at nearby Rodney Stoke. For other unsettled weather, the highest wind gust speed recorded for Glastonbury was 41mph, which has been reached at Yeovilton in 1985 and 1987 during the event.
Although 1997 was dubbed the ‘year of the mud’ on the Glastonbury website thanks to a deluge of rain in the days preceding the event, it actually holds the record for the coldest festival day with 13.2C as high as the temperature reached at Castle Cary Grove Mead. In 2017, the mercury reached a balmy 31.2C at Rodney Stoke, while the warmest night was recorded in the same year, with 17.6C at the same location.
Meanwhile, festival-goers are facing difficulties arriving at the site in Pilton amid three days of major rail strikes in the biggest outbreak of industrial action in a generation. Only a fifth of trains were running on Tuesday as around 40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at Network Rail and 13 train operators walked out in a bitter dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
In a statement, Glastonbury festival added that due to the additional traffic, festival-goers could arrive at the site from 4pm on Tuesday evening while “traffic volumes are low”.
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