UK weather: Fed up with ‘cold’ April? Temperatures are about to rise

The trees are out, but it still feels pretty chilly – and wet.

In the southeast of England, 25mm to 30mm of rain has fallen in 24 hours this weekend. For some places that is more than half the April average.

Your coat and gloves may soon be redundant, however.

While Sunday’s top temperatures across the UK range from 9C to 13C (48F to 55F), on Monday and Tuesday they could reach 16C or 17C (61F or 63F).

That trend is set to continue as the week goes on – and on Friday and Saturday, values could be in the high teens.

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From Thursday onwards, in Cardiff and Belfast, a top temperature of 16C is forecast by the Met Office.

In Edinburgh, it’s predicted to be 14C (57F), and 18C (64F) in London and Manchester.

Grey skies and rain have made April feel unusually cold, the Met Office has said.

But it has actually been “on the warmer side of average”, said Amy Bokota, a senior meteorologist.

It has been a “been a month of two halves”, she added: “Quite warm for the first half, and then quite cool up until now.”

It has definitely been “wetter than average for the UK as a whole”, however, meaning many areas of the UK have been “quite dull so far for the time of year”.

Across the UK, there has been an average of 99mm of rainfall in April so far – 27% higher than usual for the month.

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April ‘duller than it should be’

The highest temperature recorded since the start of the month was 21.8C in Writtle, Essex, with a low of -6.3C in Shap in Cumbria.

The coldest spot on Saturday night was Braemar in Aberdeenshire, where it dropped to -5.2C, which is unusually chilly this late in the year.

The UK April average is 8.4C (47F).

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Asked why people may feel it’s been colder than expected, Ms Bokota said: “The last couple of weeks have just been quite cooler than average.

“It’s been quite a dull month – duller than it should be on average – so there’s been less sunshine around, so that kind of impacts what people feel with the weather as well.

“It’s been mainly unsettled and changeable, so I think that just sort of feeds into people’s interpretation of what the weather feels like.”