Fresher air and a little rain this weekend

The weekend is upon us and with most schools having broken up for the summer holidays, lots of people will be heading for the great outdoors.

Summer so far has delivered the UK with consistently good weather, bringing plenty of warmth and sunshine, with just temporary blips of showers and thunderstorms.

Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales have all had their hottest day of the year so far in recent days, with temperatures in the upper 20s. 

However, the hottest day of the year so far still stands at 32.3C, recorded at Gravesend in Kent last Friday.

Jet stream position

The recent spell of heat and humidity is down to the position of the jet stream – the fast-moving ribbon of air five miles up in the atmosphere.

During the past few weeks, generally it has been sitting to the north of the UK. This has steered low pressure and rain towards Iceland and northern Scandinavia, allowing high pressure to build over much of Europe to give warmth and sunshine.

However, through this weekend and into next week, the jet stream is going to dip south of the UK which will bring a change to something more unsettled and changeable than what we’ve been used too.

A fresher weekend

Although the sunshine and warmth has been a nice taste of summer, it has also been quite humid, which makes the heat a little harder to deal with – especially at night when trying to sleep.

That will change this weekend, as a north westerly wind delivers fresher air off the Atlantic, sweeping away the humid feel and bringing something more comfortable.

As well as fresher air, there’ll be some weather fronts arriving, bringing rain and showers in from the west.

While it won’t be raining all the time, the unbroken spells of sunshine that most of us have enjoyed this week shouldn’t be expected, with greater amounts of cloud.

Temperatures will come down a notch too by Sunday. Scotland and Northern Ireland will be in the range of 16-21C, with England and Wales at 20-24C.

Next week will see the changeable theme continue, with spells of sunshine interspersed with some showers. However, it’ll still feel pleasant enough when the sun is shining, so don’t write next week off!

Don’t forget, you can get the latest forecast on the Channel 4 Weather website. I’ll also be posting regular updates on Twitter – @liamdutton