April may fool all the weather records

With a week remaining of the month and more balmy weather forecast across the country, meteorologists believe that Britain could be heading towards the warmest April for a decade.

Temperatures in the capital hit 21C (69.8F) yesterday, making London hotter than Rome – unusual for this time of year, which normally sees figures of around 14C. But summer's premature arrival was not just confined to South-east England, with Birmingham and Edinburgh hitting 17C and Durham recording temperatures of 16C.

Paul Mott, a forecaster with MeteoGroup, said: "We are in quite a settled period of weather with high pressure south-west of the UK keeping most areas warm and still. It has been consistently several degrees above average for the past few days but will cool down at the start of next week."

Yesterday was just one degree shy of the hottest day of the year, which was recorded last Wednesday in East Malling, Kent, when it reached 2C.

It was still well short of the highest temperature recorded in April which stands at 29.4C in Camden, north London, in 1949. The hottest April temperature this decade was in 2007 which saw conditions reach 26C.

Mr Mott said figures compiled by the weather historian Philip Eden showed the average Central England Temperature (CET) for April 2007 was 11.C, or 3.1C above the monthly average. So far the CET for April 2009 is 1.5C above average.