Monday is expected to herald a drop in temperatures and rain for some areas of the UK at the end of an unseasonably warm Easter weekend.
Temperatures were expected to reach the high teens on Sunday, with the possibility of even higher in the south after Good Friday was the warmest day of the year so far, with 23.4C recorded in St James’s Park in London – warmer than Ibiza.
But cloudier skies were expected in the west on Sunday with outbreaks of rain across Northern Ireland and western Scotland edging slowly eastwards in a week that the UK Met Office said wouldbring a return to more normal weather for April, when the average temperature is about 12C.
It predicted temperatures would start to drop from Easter Monday with some scattered rain and cloud moving in over the course of the week.
Marco Petagna, a senior meteorologist at the Met Office, said rain would push in from the west overnight, which would be “weakening” as it went, so the east may stay dry.
“The idea is temperatures gradually just creeping down each day for the next few days across the UK,” he said.
“The farther south and south-east you go the better chances to stay fine again, but [it will be] slightly cooler [on Monday] at 19 in the south-east, low to mid-teens elsewhere.”
Pollen levels – which have been high in most of the country, causing misery for those with hay fever – would begin to decrease in many areas from Monday onwards and Petagna said Easter Monday may be the last of the dry, bright weather for the week, which has seen moderate UV levels with the “sun as strong now as during August”.
He said: “Tuesday and Wednesday could see a few showers, particularly across the south of the UK. And then the second half of the week is when we get an easterly wind developing, more in the way of cloud pushing in from the east with some patchy rain but still a lot of relatively dry weather too.
“But the trend is certainly for temperatures to take a bit of a dip, so we’re sort of back down to low locally mid-single figures by Thursday.”
The warm weather over the weekend coupled with it being the first Easter without lockdown restrictions for two years meant many people headed to the coast, with Bournemouth attracting some of the biggest crowds of the year and coastal car parks in Cornwall also packed with holidaymakers.
People returning from weekend breaks have been advised by the RAC to either travel before 10.30am or after 6.30pm on Easter Monday to avoid queues.
