Funnily enough, on 18th July 2013, I visited my caravan in Southend for a few days. When I got there, the place was enveloped in North Sea fog with a temperature of just 13C - about 10 miles inland it was clear blue skies and 28C.

Mind, it had been so hot, that the temporary coolness was a bit of a relief, if I'm honest.

12C here in Cheshire,…stopped raining heavily but now very overcast with slight mizzle… still breezy...it’s westerly so not too chilly.

Should brighten up by early afternoon,... although the temp will stay the same.

Thought it might be a good idea to have a comprehensive list of the Central England Temperature records from 1659 to date, on hand.

The list compiled by Gordon Manley in 1974, containing the records from 1659 to 1973, can be viewed here

The list compiled by the Met Office from 1974 to date, can be viewed here

I've put the Manley one in as it's much more user friendly than the Met Office historic version, and shows everything in easy to read tabular form.

Some very warm and sunny weather now well on the way - could be 24 or 25 degrees by the weekend.

Just what the Doctor ordered

Not even 10am yet and it's absolutely lovely

Stuck in this weekend blitzing the house

Put it off until the next rainy weekend.

a sunny warm fresh may day in england.... cant beat it!

Does look a lot warmer this weekend but more particulairy sunday it could be quite stormy

See my post #408,…the Seagulls and Salmon are never wrong!

P.S. .. Swans and Badgers on the other hand, are completely hopeless.…

Have you worked out what happens when the seagulls follow the trawler, I'd love to know!

Yes, stormy in the thunderstorm sense, rather than the wild, wet and windy sense.

As ever with thunderstorms, their whereabouts, severity, how widespread they are, and even whether they occur at all, is very much in the lap of the Gods.

Among the most difficult weather event to forecast with any real accuracy.

...a good question d'@ve,… and it’s been bothering me for quite some time;

….however, one thing is for sure,…when it comes to weather prediction Sardines are even worse than Swans and Badgers.

Thanks for these links Blueblade. Had a good glance through them.

I see that 25c is being predicted for southern England come Sunday. That probably means we are likely to see an 80f somewhere later this weekend then, which is impressive for 8th May. Yet despite the warmer weather last night it went down to a very chilly low of 3.3c at mine here. Infact the nights this week have been up and down all over the place, with 0c, 10c, 3c on consecutive early mornings on 1st, 2nd & 3rd May.

Just been reading in the past few days about the summer of 1959, which was even more fabulous sounding than I'd ever realised. The weather became sunny and settled in mid May 1959 and stayed much the same.....all the way until October! Infact at the end of summer and by September and early autumn the weather was getting better still and apparently people began wondering when the lovely conditions would ever end.

I love this piece of music and weather related trivia from 1959 - the moment the brilliant weather began to subside in October was when a song called Here Comes Summer hit the No1 spot!

I was on my best EVER childhood holiday, among the sand dunes of north wales in September 1959. The memories never fade, wonderful sunny warm days every day for a fortnight!

The downside was that soon after we got home at the end of the month, the water stand pipes went up at the end of the street and after a while, we had to go out to fill up every day. Several times, but not for long, as the drought finally broke later in October.

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/repor...ummer-1959.htm

I was up north then, but Philip Eden points out that Southampton broke the record for days at or above 21 deg C that year... a total of 136 i.e. not far off 5 months worth!

I have a similar memory from my childhood. The summer of 1982 is never considered anything of note, indeed it had a quite poor June. However I went on holiday in the middle of September 1982 to the Isle Of Wight with the family and it was an exceptionally good week with brilliant weather every day of sunshine and temperatures in the high 20's. Infact it was around this time I began keeping a weather diary and it has a few days from the 11th to 18th hitting an unofficial 28c, so 82f. The day after we got back home and I woke up it was cloudy, much cooler and had rained.

1959 must have been an amazing Summer to live through, with few breaks (some violent thunderstorms around 9th July) with never especially excessive heat according to Eden's report. Before that, 1947 is the obvious candidate for long continued Summer warmth and dryness. As far as September warmth, 1949 is the cracker with a CET of 16.3C. Not come close since, nor have we got a September 32C, although 2005 came pretty close with one on 31st August.

Quite interesting that for all the hype about warmer Summers these days, we've never managed to hit the September heights of yesteryear.

As for the immediate here and now, looks like increasingly warm and humid, with, as you say, 25C on the cards over the weekend. Plus an increasing risk of thundery activity - now I'm speculating here, but with a South Easterly airflow, we might this time get more widespread thunderstorms, and not the usual South Coast only, or "Kent Clippers". That's as far as imported storms are concerned. There could easily be home grown ones as well. Might even be prodigious as temperatures will be decreasing rapidly with height.

As I say, just speculation. I'll probably be wildly off the mark.

Overnights will drop to single digits under clear skies though.

Temperatures slowly slipping back after Monday. Come the 19th May daytime temperatures will be back down to 13 degrees C again.

The temperatures do fall back quite substantially at night before the summer solstice, even now with there being as much sunlight as early August.

Record low humidity this afternoon here S Hants for at least 27 months, 31% at 3pm when temperature was 18.2 and sunny with thin high cloud. Nice!

Possibly tonight in rural areas, but as the heat, humidity and cloud cover increase, I'd say minima over England more like 12 to 14 degrees, even in the countryside.

IGNORE THE EXPRESS.... i gather its prediction 100 days of sunshine and a roasting hot summer..

it is of course pure speculation.

meanwhile enjoy this weekends heat - it wont last and by tuesday things will be returning to a more normal condition - which for mid may is pretty decent.

There's more cloud cover today, which might depress temperatures back from their forecast high. At this time of year, cloud cover makes a tremendous difference to daytime maxima.

true, but to compensate the thin cloud, we import warmer air with warmer 'uppers', so a more humid, possibly muggy feel and some continental air pollution which might taint the air

on rare occassions we get 'pine air' off the forests of france, thats nice

Yes. I was probably being unduly pessimistic earlier, as the high cloud has now thinned substantially, with a lot of blue showing through, and temperatures on the rise. Now 19.6C here, and very similar conditions all over England and Wales.