Suncream or brollies this Easter?

Easter weekend

Many places will see sunny spells for Easter weekend, but it will be cooler than last weekend with some showers too.

The weather for the Easter weekend is looking changeable but there will still be plenty of fine and dry weather to enjoy. However, weak weather fronts could bring some rain and showers to more northern and eastern parts of the UK, with perhaps some sleet or snow over hills in the north.

The details for the weather for Easter Day and Easter Monday are still a little uncertain, but at the moment it looks as if northern parts of the UK could be rather cloudy with outbreaks of rain for a time.

After last weekend when many parts saw unbroken sunshine and temperatures well above average for the time of year, it will feel cooler for Easter with temperatures reaching around 12-15C by day. In any prolonged sunny spells it will still feel pleasant and remember that the sun is now quite strong so cover up if you’re going to be outside for a long time. With a cool polar maritime airmass affecting the UK, it will also turn chilly overnight where skies remain clear, so gardeners beware, there could be a touch of frost.

As the dates for Easter move each year, we typically can expect to see a range of weather and temperatures across the holiday and this is reflected in the extremes recorded. Although this Easter looks to be on the cool side, it’s not going to be nearly as cold as in 1998 on Good Friday when Pennerley in Shropshire recorded a maximum temperature of -0.4C.

Neither will we see as much rain as that recorded in 2010, when Honister in Cumbria recorded 72mm of rain on Easter Day itself. The highest maximum temperature recorded over past Easter weekends was 27.8C recorded on Easter Saturday at Heathrow, London (1949), Mildenhall, Suffolk (1949) and Wisley, Surrey (2011).