The capital is predicted to bask in 25C sunshine in the coming days - as hot as Barcelona - in a welcome boost to sun-starved Londoners.
Londoners are in for warm, dry weather this week, with highs of 20C to 23C, before the thermometer goes even higher at the start of next week, the Met Office is predicting.
It said the UK’s weather will shift this week, caused by a strengthening of the jet stream, which will raise temperatures to above the seasonal average in sunnier periods after a decidedly mixed start to the summer.
The capital is set for cloudy weather with sunny intervals for the rest of the week, with the cloud dissipating by Monday when temperatures are expected to reach 25C. The Met Office is predicting the same temperature in Barcelona, with London set to be only one or two degrees centigrade cooler than Palma in Majorca and Nice.
Met Office Deputy Chief Meteorologist Dan Harris said: “In stark contrast to the first half of June, where temperatures have widely been below average, we are expecting to see a steady uptick through the second half of this week, rising to around or above average, and it will likely feel very warm for those in the sunshine.”
The warm spell comes after a largely miserable May and early June, blighted by grey skies and heavy rain showers.
It was the UK’s wettest spring since 1986 and the sixth wettest on record, according to the Met Office.
An average 301.7mm of rain fell on the country across March, April and May, nearly a third (32 per cent) more than usual for the season.
The sun was in short supply in May too, with the UK seeing 17 per cent fewer hours of sunshine than average, and with England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all having below average sunshine hours.
Yet despite the dull, wet conditions, the UK had its warmest May and spring on record, provisional Met Office figures show.
For the UK in May, Scotland was particularly warm, with a mean temperature of 12.3C, beating 2018’s previous record by 1.6C.
The Met Office said the UK’s climate is changing, with recent decades warmer, wetter and sunnier than the 20th century, while natural variation also plays a part in the country’s weather.
The record warmth for the UK comes as the world has experienced a streak of record temperatures, continuing for 11 months in a row up to April 2024, which was the hottest ever recorded, data released last month showed.
Climate change caused by human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests which pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is pushing up temperatures around the world, and causing more extreme weather such as droughts, heatwaves and intense rainfall.
