Make the most of the summer sun, there's stormy weather ahead

Amol Rajan
Saturday 26 July 2008 00:00 BST
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After an all too brief appearance of blue skies and sun, cloudy and humid conditions with thunderstorms will overtake much of Britain this weekend, followed by rain.

The Midlands and East Anglia could see heavy downpours today or tomorrow, with rain hitting the South-west and Wales by Monday.

Average temperatures are expected to be 25C by day and no lower than 18C at night. A "Spanish plume" weather system – in which warm, thunder-filled air is dragged up from the Iberian peninsula to meet cooler Atlantic temperatures – will precipitate cooler, damper conditions by the middle of next week.

After temperatures reached 27.9C at Heathrow airport on Thursday, the second hottest day of the year and warmer than both the Azores and Israel, temperatures cooled by an average of two degrees across the country yesterday. The hottest day so far this year was 1 July, when temperatures reached 28.2C (82.8F) on the outskirts of London.

With beaches around the country expected to be crowded over the next few days, coastguards issued a warning that people should be careful when swimming in areas prone to rip tides. The warning follows the death of a 42-year-old man from Cardiff who was was swimming near Teignmouth, in south Devon, and was swept out to sea and drowned.

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