The weather charts are a sea of orange and red, and the meteorologists at the Met Office are reaching for their superlatives. The United Kingdom is on the cusp of experiencing its warmest start to the month of April in six long years. A broad swathe of the country, from the south coast of England all the way up to the central belt of Scotland, is set to enjoy temperatures that are significantly above the seasonal norm. For a nation whose favourite pastime is discussing the weather, this is headline news of the highest order.
Advertisement
The numbers are genuinely impressive. Forecasters are predicting widespread highs of between 18 and 23 degrees Celsius across much of the country. That is a full ten degrees above the typical early April average, which tends to hover in the rather less inspiring range of 12 to 15 degrees. Some areas in the south and east of England could even touch 26 degrees, challenging the all-time April record of 26.1 degrees set way back in 1946. The cause of this meteorological largesse is a classic setup: an area of high pressure anchored over the continent is acting as a conveyor belt, dragging warm, settled air up from the south. It is a pattern more typically associated with high summer than early spring.
