UK weather: Two more days of hot sunshine – then thunderstorms

Met Office has warned that thunderstorms could cause flooding and power outages across much of southern England and Wales

Hot weather will remain across the UK until thunderstorms roll in from Europe on Wednesday night.

The Met Office says that despite some cloud cover, much of England and Wales will be “quite sunny and warm” throughout Tuesday, with highs of up to 25C.

Although cooler than Monday’s scorching temperatures – which reached 29.7C in Teddington, Middlesex, making it the hottest day of the year to date – Met Office meteorologists predict that Wednesday could be even hotter in the south.

Temperatures could reach 30C in London, although a “big temperature contrast” is expected between the north and south of the country. Cardiff is forecast to reach 24C on Wednesday, but the predicted high for Edinburgh is just 18C.

Met Office forecaster Steven Keates said: “It looks like the full force of the heat is going to come back on Wednesday for southern and central England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

“There’s a chance that Wednesday could become the hottest day of the year.

“But there’s a big temperature contrast across the north west versus the south east.”

Following the heat in the south, thunderstorms are expected to arrive in full force Wednesday evening.

Mr Keates warned that there could be “three potential rounds of thunderstorms” – one on Wednesday evening, another on Friday, and a final storm on Sunday, moving in from Europe and across the UK.

The Met Office has issued yellow weather warnings stating these storms could cause flooding and power outages across much of southern England and Wales between 6pm Wednesday and 6am Friday morning.

“Whilst not all locations will be affected, some intense thunderstorms may occur during this period with torrential rain, hail, frequent lightning and strong gusty winds possible,” the warning says.

“Rainfall totals of around 30mm could fall in an hour, with some locations potentially receiving around 50mm in 203 hours, although these will be fairly isolated.”

The Met Office expects that the storms will mostly clear into the North Sea on Saturday morning.