UK ENJOYS WARMEST DAY OF YEAR SO FAR

[tropicana]

Thu May 4 2006
Much of Britain was bathed in glorious sunshine today as the country enjoyed the hottest day of the year so far.

By late morning thermometers had already hit 24C (75F), making southern England hotter than the south of France, the Greek islands, Spain and north Africa.

The hottest place in the UK as lunchtime approached was East Malling in Kent where the temperature had reached 24.3C and rising.

Gatwick and Charlwood in Surrey also topped 24C.

In Tenerife it was only 22C while Kos, Crete, Alicante and the Algarve in Portugal could all only manage 19C.

Majorca and Ibiza were just 18C and Morocco was even colder.

Weather forecasters predicted temperatures would top 26C (79F) in the South East of England as the day goes on.

However, the South West, west Wales, Northern Ireland and western Scotland were expected to have showers and thunderstorms.

Weather forecaster Brendan Jones, from PA WeatherCentre, said the mini heat wave was down to a phenomenon called a "Spanish plume".

"Every summer we see these events we refer to as a 'Spanish plume'. This event is not exactly the same but similar," he said.

"A Spanish plume is a plume of very warm air coming across from Spain and then France and into southern England.

"The temperatures across France are in the mid 70s, that's the air that will be with us today."

He said the other feature of a Spanish plume was a band of cooler wet weather that runs alongside the fine dry conditions.

The forecaster said with the good weather would come humidity and it was not clear how long the sunshine would last.

He added: "The weekend is looking fairly unsettled, the warmest conditions will be in the eastern half of the country while the cooler fresher weather will be further west."

The previous hottest day this year was 21C (70F) recorded a few weeks ago on the south coast. The average temperature for May in England and Wales is 15-16C (59-61F).

An Asda spokeswoman said its stores across the country had already seen shoppers stocking up on summer goods in anticipation of the good weather.

She said sales of items associated with winter meals like stewing steak and root vegetables were all down, while summer foods like salads and coleslaw were up 52%, sun screen 50%, barbecue meats and grills 45%, cold meats 35% and new potatoes 30%.

With good weather expected, British Gas warned that homeowners could be wasting more than £20 million a day because they have forgotten to turn off their central heating.

The energy supplier estimated that following a few false starts to Spring, a record number of homes have not adjusted their central heating thermostat since winter and are still heating their homes as if it were January.

The company's engineers are attending more than 50,000 central heating repair jobs a week when they would normally have around 35,000 call-outs.


LONDON HEATHROW'S HIGH FOR THE DAY... 27.5C 82F

-justin-

[P.K.]

Thu May 4 2006
Weather forecaster Brendan Jones, from PA WeatherCentre, said the mini heat wave was down to a phenomenon called a "Spanish plume".

Nice to see Brendan in the article.

It has been a bit cooler since with the Central England Temperature series up to the 24th May at +1.4C. http://www.climate-uk.com/

[Yarrah]

That little heat wave caused some record breaking temperatures here too. May 4, for example, was the warmest May 4 ever recorded, with temperatures of about 27 degrees Celsius. Too bad it didn't last long since it's rainy and cold again.