UK weather – Brits to enjoy 18C Indian Summer and it’s set to last until Halloween thanks to ‘African plume’
BRITS are to bask in a 18C Indian Summer which has been forecast to last until Halloween.
A plume of hot air from Africa will see temperatures rise in a run of warmer weather from Monday.
Today will see sunny spells for many while Monday is expected to be dry with sunshine in the south as rain clears the north.
Forecaster Marco Petagna from the Met Office said: “There’s a good signal for higher temperatures thanks to a southerly airstream with very mild or warm air.”
It will be a breezy start for some with any lingering showers across Kent and East Sussex easing away east.
Warm sunshine will follow with a maximum temperature 19C in London, but turn hazy later in the afternoon, as high cloud spreads north.
READ MORE ON WEATHER
The north is expected to see mostly fine conditions, with high pressure bringing generally settled conditions from Wednesday, although with some bands of rain spreading.
Wednesday is expected to be the hottest day at around 22C.
Netweather forecaster Nick Finnis told the : “Some computer models show 22C or 23C by midweek, bringing an Indian Summer.
“An exceptionally-warm plume of air from northwest Africa looks like being pumped across Europe and to Britain, with up to the low 30s in France, and over 20C in southern Britain.”
An ‘Indian Summer‘ means a period of unseasonably warm, dry and calm weather which can make for an Autumnal heatwave.
The mercury has soared to 30C on several occasions during the last week of the month.
October’s highest temperature ever recorded in the UK was 29.4C in the small market town of March, Cambridgeshire, on the first day of the month in 1985.
Met Office weather forecaster Becky Mitchell told The Sun Online the weather won’t be a “typical Indian summer” but temperatures will rise around 4C above average in some places.
Temperatures in London will sit around 18C from Thursday to Saturday.
She said: “The warmer air we are expecting in the middle of this week will originate from northern Africa.
“Temperatures will bit a little above average across the UK this week, with highs of 17-18C each day in the south. We can expect to see temperatures reach around 21 Celsius in the south on Thursday as a southerly wind draws up warm air from France.”
What is an Indian Summer?
An ‘Indian Summer’ means a period of unseasonably warm, dry and calm weather which can make for an Autumnal heatwave.
Highs of 27-29C have happened before in late September.
The mercury has soared to 30C on several occasions during the last week of the month, while the highest October temperature ever recorded in the UK was 29.4C in the small market town of March, Cambridgeshire, on the first day of the month in 1985.
An Indian Summer is usually followed by a period of colder weather or frost in the late Autumn.
The term Indian summer reached England in the 19th century, during the heyday of the British Raj in India leading to the belief that the term referred to the Indian subcontinent.
However it’s claimed the term was first coined by the Native Americans, and it was used there in the late 18th century.
Sunny spells are expected amid showery periods in the South and West until the end of the month for Halloween.
The hotter temperatures follow four days of downpours as 47mph winds battered Britain.
The wet and windy weather arrived alongside an “active” jet stream off the Atlantic which has pushed rain up from southern England.
Around 32mm of rain (an inch) will fall across these areas and clear south-eastwards to leave sunny spells and showers later in the day.
Read More on The Sun
Despite the arrival of wind and rain, temperatures remain mild for much of the UK.
Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin warned of the arrival of a wet weather front from the Atlantic will bring “more persistent rain” up from the south west on Sunday before the skies clear.
