Wales, Scotland and N Ireland record warmest Easter Sunday temperatures
Temperatures reached 23C in Trawsgoed, Wales, 22.8C in Edinburgh, Scotland, and 20.7C in Helen’s Bay, Northern Ireland.
Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have each enjoyed their warmest Easter Sunday on record, the Met Office said.
Temperatures reached 23.4C at both Cardiff Bute Park, Wales, and at Scotland’s Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden, while 21C was recorded at Helen’s Bay in Northern Ireland.
These beat the temperatures of 21.6C in Brynamman, Wales, in 1984, along with 20.7C in Aboyne, Scotland, in 2015, and 19.4C in Armagh in Northern Ireland dating back to 1924 which were the warmest Easter Sundays for those countries.
The highest temperature of this bright, sunny and dry Easter Sunday in England was the 24.6C, which was reached Heathrow.
This was still shy of the top Easter Sunday temperature from 2011 when the mercury reached 25.3C in the Solent.
Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna said: “We have got high pressure moving at the moment giving most of the UK a lot of fine weather, this combined with the fact that the high pressure has dominated for the past few days is allowing the temperatures to heat and build.
“It is allowing some record breaking temperatures to be set today and potentially tomorrow as we are looking at a high of 25C or 26C.”
He also suggested that the temperatures may also be helped by the fact that Easter has fallen a little later in the calendar this year.
He said: “The later in the year that Easter falls, the higher the sun is in the sky and the stronger it is.”
As most people basked in Easter sunshine, firefighters tackled a large wildfire on Yorkshire’s famous Ilkley Moor.
A helicopter was brought in on Sunday to drop tonnes of water onto the smouldering moorland just to the south of the town in West Yorkshire.
More than 100 firefighters tackled the fire in sweltering conditions at its height on Saturday afternoon.
The dry, sunny and very warm temperatures have brought high risk of wildfires in Yorkshire and north-west England, and a moderate likelihood for Wales and south-west England, according to the Met Office.
It comes after Easter Saturday became the warmest day of the year so far when the temperature hit 25.5C in Gosport, Hampshire.
The UK’s warmest Easter temperature was the 29.4C recorded at Camden Square in London on Easter Saturday in 1949.
The other warmest Easter weekend days include the 26.9C recorded at London’s St James’s Park on Good Friday in 2011 – when the mercury also reached 25.3C on Easter Sunday and 24C on Easter Monday, both in the Solent.
Met Office meteorologist Dean Hall said that in “stark contrast” to the dry and sunny conditions in the UK, Spain and the Mediterranean are seeing showers and heavy downpours.
He added: “Spain is very unsettled as we go into Easter Monday. There are temperatures of 17C to 16C in Barcelona. There are certainly cooler conditions there compared to the UK.”
