Mapped: UK weather to see off bank holiday rain with temperatures to soar up to 25C
A Caribbean jetstream is set to see temperatures rise across the country, ending the UK's bank holiday washout.
The South East may even see up to 25C by the end of half-term week, according to a Met Office forecast.
Weather maps show a Caribbean jet stream sweeping across Britain, triggering a 48-hour spell of summer weather warmer than parts of Greece, Morocco and southern Italy.
London will even be hotter than Rabat, the capital city of Morocco, and Palermo in Sicily on Friday.
But Met Office spokesperson Oliver Claydon told The Independent that the burst of warm weather doesn't quite reach the forecaster's criteria for a heatwave.
He said: 'Temperatures this week will fluctuate as weather systems move across the UK, bringing wet and windy weather at times, interspersed by warmer spells of sunshine.
'Temperatures could reach highs of 25C in the south on Friday and Saturday, while remaining a little cooler further north with temperatures reaching the high teens, possibly low 20Cs.
'There is a possibility as we head into June and through the latter part of next week that we could see higher pressure moving in and with it higher temperatures in the south, but at this stage, there is fairly low confidence in the extended outlook.'
He added: 'Temperatures in the mid to high 20s are not unusual for late May and early June. Additionally, any period of higher temperatures is more likely to be fairly short-lived.'
Temperatures are predicted to return to normal by Monday, but could rise again by Tuesday 3 June.
The Met Office's long-range forecast warns of strong winds and thunderstorms in that period. It reads: 'Strong winds may also develop at times, particularly in the North and North West.
'With time, the signs are that systems will increasingly track to the northwest of the country, with the South probably starting to see longer, drier interludes while the North West continues to see more in the way of rain and at times strong winds.
'Temperatures are expected to be around normal overall, but will be cooler in any prolonged periods of rainfall. Meanwhile, there is the possibility of some very warm, perhaps hot conditions developing, especially in the South, and these bring with them the chance of thunderstorms.'
It came as April 2025 was declared the sunniest since records began in 1910. This followed the third-sunniest March, and both months saw temperatures well above average nationwide.
On 1 May, the temperature reached 29.3C in Kew Gardens in London – a new record for the date.
Meteorologists are warning of the potential for a summer drought, as the UK has seen roughly half its usual amount of rainfall for March and April. While farmers are concerned about this year's harvest, some water companies are urging customers to help reservoir levels recover by limiting water use.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
‘My daughter only knew hospitals until I had a son whose bone marrow saved her life'
'I've been thinking a lot about health privilege lately,' says Mina Holland, 'and I absolutely don't take good health for granted any more.' We are sitting in the garden of her house in Tulse Hill, south London, not far from where she grew up. It's a poignant anniversary for Holland. Six years ago today, her life changed forever when a routine check-up at Lewisham hospital turned into an emergency. Her 11-week-old daughter, Vida, was admitted for an urgent blood transfusion. 'I've never seen a baby with haemoglobin levels this low,' one doctor said. Holland is an author, journalist and occasional restaurant and wine list consultant, as evidenced by her large open kitchen, with its amply stocked wine rack and a pyramid of Mutti Polpa – the connoisseur's tinned tomatoes – by the back door. She has just baked some deliciously sticky cookies, which we take into the garden to eat. Her husband Freddie, a sound engineer, is at work; Vida and her four-year-old brother Gabriel are at school. Before that hospital trip in 2019, looking after Vida had been a struggle. Despite her frequent crying and pallor – people complimented her porcelain skin – the couple had no real idea anything was wrong. She wasn't an easy baby: a fussy feeder and an erratic sleeper. But they were first-time parents – what did they know? When they were first told about Vida's haemoglobin levels, they assumed it meant she was severely anaemic. But it soon became clear that it was more serious than that. Vida received a blood transfusion over four days – there's only so much you can give at once – and after just one instalment, the change was remarkable: her colour returned and she fed with gusto. The family took her home and tests began to investigate the cause of her anaemia, which could have stemmed from a number of things. They were vastly relieved to learn it wasn't blood cancer – but unsettled by the emerging discussions around 'bone marrow'. The effects of the transfusion soon wore off. Four weeks later, Vida's haemoglobin levels had dropped again, and her symptoms – poor appetite, restlessness, pallor – had returned. Holland was floored, watching her baby decline. But as a journalist, she threw herself into the research, typing in symptoms and exploring every possible avenue in search of a cause. She was becoming desperate. One condition Holland came across was extremely rare – but it seemed to match all of Vida's symptoms: Diamond-Blackfan anaemia (DBA), a genetic blood disorder in which the bone marrow fails to produce enough red blood cells. DBA affects only five to seven children in a million. But that's what it turned out to be, as the family discovered on a bleak day in July, when Vida was five months old. Neither Holland nor Freddie carry the gene for DBA, they would later learn, and the odds of Vida having it were infinitesimal. It felt like a life sentence of anxiety and grief. As well as an inability to produce sufficient red blood cells, DBA is associated with a predisposition to certain cancers and the risk of other abnormalities. Treatment pathways vary – a lifelong course of steroids or a bone marrow transplant were possibilities for the future – but in the short term, it meant regular blood transfusions, roughly every three weeks. Each time, a cannula had to be inserted into the arm of a screaming baby – often requiring both parents and three nurses – followed by a painstaking effort to keep her still for the next three hours. Holland has now written a book about these early years, called Lifeblood, which gives a visceral impression of the emotions they went through at the time; firstly the worry and uncertainty, followed by incomprehension, then the fear and grief at what they – and Vida – were facing for the rest of their lives. 'I'm really lucky in that we had a very favourable set-up,' she says today. 'Our parents are around, my mother-in-law is a psychotherapist, we've got access to all the top-notch children's hospitals. But I still just felt very, very alone.' Friends did their best, but she came to resent their platitudes. 'I can't tell you what would have helped – I think I just needed to be met in the despair, at that point.' There were endless hospital visits and life gradually reshaped itself around this new reality – DBA was all Holland could talk about. She couldn't work. She couldn't even watch TV. Every aspect of their lives was dictated by Vida's condition. They sold their flat – it felt like 'a crime scene', she writes – and moved in with Louise, Freddie's mother, whose home was near St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, where Vida was being treated, as well as the Evelina Children's Hospital at St Thomas's, south London. Vida was doing well on the transfusions – Freddie described her as 'full of life, but not haemoglobin' – but difficult questions loomed about the future. Around the age of one, she would become eligible for a steroid treatment: prednisolone, given initially at a high dose to jolt the bone marrow into producing red blood cells, then gradually tapered down in the hope it would continue to work at a sustainably low dose. This could mean an end to transfusions – but long-term, low-dose steroids are only effective in a minority of cases. The alternative was lifelong transfusions, which would not only severely limit her mobility but also require further treatment to manage the iron overload they cause. There was a third possibility: the bone marrow transplant. 'The idea of a bone marrow transplant just sounded wild,' says Holland now. 'Before this, bone marrow was a dish at the restaurant St John. Or something that I remember the dogs gnawing on at my grandmother's house. It just sounded so technical and so terrifying. And the idea of the complete destruction of the immune system in order to make your child independent of three-weekly hospital visits, was mind-boggling.' In a bone marrow transplant, the faulty marrow is replaced with healthy marrow from a matched donor, offering the possibility of a haematological cure. Graft-versus-host rejection can occur, though the risk is significantly lower if the donor is a family member, especially a sibling. (It is extremely rare for parents to be a match, and neither Holland nor Freddie were suitable donors.) Preparation for the transplant involves complete isolation and a course of chemotherapy and other drugs designed to destroy the immune system. Before Vida's DBA was even confirmed, Holland was convinced that transplant was her best option. 'I don't want illness to be her life's focus,' she writes. 'I wanted her to have all the freedom of movement and mind that healthy children and adults have.' In early 2020, Holland found out she was pregnant again. She and Freddie had wanted a second child anyway, 'and I really am keen to emphasise that he was never designed to be a saviour sibling', she says. The chances of that child being a match for Vida were one in four, and initially Holland had considered IVF to try to engineer this. 'But it was going to cost so much money, and the chances of it working were tiny. So we thought, well – one in four, let's try. We wanted another child, and if there was any way they could help, brilliant. 'Our second child will not be a 'designer baby',' Holland writes. 'Our child will be a much-loved family member who happens to have a trait that could help their sister in a way no one else could. We want to give Vida the best chance we can.' Gabriel was born in the winter of 2020, and in January 2021 they received the phone call – Gabriel did not have DBA. The relief was immense. 'A geneticist would say that because we already had a child with it, yes, the chances were higher, but actually based on probability it was a very low chance that he would have it as well. But obviously we were still scared.' A month later she and Freddie were informed that, should a transplant be warranted, Gabriel was a match for Vida. They were cautiously euphoric. 'When we found out that he was a match, it became a bit of a no-brainer. It was a big decision to go ahead with the transplant, because it's high-risk, but around that time the advice was changing: when she was diagnosed as a tiny baby, what we were hearing from the other parents in the DBA community and from her doctor, was this is not a decision you take lightly – it's dangerous, it's a year out of mainstream life, and there are a lot of things that could go wrong. Two years later, new research showed much better outcomes, both from donors who are related and not, and that the quality of life outcomes for kids who had had transplants were quite favourable compared to living on blood transfusions. 'I feel apprehensive about saying this because I know that there are lots of parents with children who are on transfusions, who are leading rich lives, but I know it's not easy.' In March 2023, Vida had her transplant, with bone marrow donated by her brother. Their parents did not underestimate the emotional implications of this. 'We have told Vida that Gabriel is 'sharing some of his blood with her',' Holland writes in Lifeblood. 'She is concerned about him 'going to sleep'; having his blood removed; we tell her that he has lots of it and that he won't remember […] Until now, Freddie and I have minimised the significance of what he will have to endure – the many blood tests, the general anaesthetic, the soreness in his lower back where the bone marrow will be taken, and the consequent anaemia which will require months of iron supplementation […] we are signing up our baby for the possibility of pain and distress. This doesn't sit comfortably.' In anticipation of the transplant, Vida had spent weeks in hospital, and had a Hickman line fitted through which to administer her 'conditioning treatment' – a cocktail of meds, including the chemotherapy, which inevitably made her ill, and caused her to lose her hair. But the transplant was a success. Gabriel's stem cell donation was 'abundant', her doctor informed them, and the new cells established successfully. She remained in hospital for five-and-a-half weeks as her immune system was non-existent, whereas Gabriel was sent home the following day and made a very quick recovery. When Vida returned home, there were restrictions. She had to take nine different medications four times a day; she had a controlled diet and could only drink boiled water. 'Every aspect of her day is monitored, curated, limited somehow,' writes Holland. Vida is six now, and flourishing. She started school midway through her reception year and is doing well, though she still has many hospital appointments. DBA makes her susceptible to certain cancers, so she has to be careful with sun protection, and she'll be on penicillin for life. Gabriel is sometimes jealous of these precautions and asks for medicine too. 'She's the patient, and it's obviously been hardest for her, but it's also been tough on Gabriel – in different ways. After the transplant, she often had to be readmitted, and we'd have to leave at a moment's notice to go to A&E at St Mary's. That was really hard for him; he was only three.' Vida hasn't questioned the constant hospital visits, Holland says. It's all she knows. 'I spent so long grieving that she was not going to have a normal life, that we were missing out on all the school activities and the swimming lessons – I was so worried about all that, but there have been aspects of it that have been quite wonderful, and I don't say that lightly.' Remarkably, Holland says, 'Vida loves going to hospital now. She used to get very frightened about the blood tests, it was traumatic for her and for us, but when I look at it as a whole, hospital has been a place where she gets focused time with one or both of her parents, she gets a lot of adult attention, she gets art therapy, she gets music therapy, she gets lots of presents. There have been rich moments too as well as very long, very empty, uncertain and frightening days. 'I think that how Vida's trauma is expressed will obviously evolve over time, and I feel I need to be quite alert as to how things could come out for her as she gets older.' At Easter, Vida's school put on an 'Eggstravaganza' where all the children were asked to make a diorama featuring hard-boiled eggs. 'I said, we've got to win this – let's make the hospital.' So they created 'Egg-elina Children's Hospital', based on the Evelina, with yolk transfusions and an 'eggs-ray'. And Vida won. The idea of the book came up while Holland was pregnant with Gabriel. 'I wrote it in a very sort of stolen-moments way, over about four years. The original plan was for it to be about Vida's first year, and finding acceptance, accommodating the unexpected. When things feel really bleak, it's hard to see how any good can come of them, but I know a lot of good has come from what happened. 'Even with the transfusions, I am glad those days are over but I look back on them fondly because I felt so held – particularly in the early days when I was always trying to second guess how she was doing, what her blood count was; I was always gazing at her face and ears and lips, trying to work out how anaemic she was. But when she went into hospital, I was sharing the responsibility. Obviously I wish that Vida hadn't had to go through what she has, and we could have been spared it – but it's sort of all I know now. I've been rewired.' In the UK, one in 25 babies is born with a genetic condition of some kind, and Holland's book will resonate with other parents facing similar challenges. Writing down what happened really helped, she says, 'and having a sense of – it sounds like a cliché – but being able to take control of the story. It was good to put it in my own words; I often don't know how I feel about things until I've written them down.' She is full of gratitude for the NHS. 'The biggest takeaway is just how hugely lucky we are to have the NHS, and what a precious thing it is. It's been incredible. I would love to know what Vida's medical bill is after six years of this; even the chelation medicine she had to have while she was on transfusion was well into five figures a year.' What people can do to help, she says, is give blood. Her book is out, inadvertently, just after World Blood Donor Day, which is on 14 June. 'For an hour spent in a blood donor centre you can save up to three lives. And in order to maintain blood supplies, 140,000 first-time donors are needed every year. 'I would just like to convey that it is an easy thing to do – having watched countless needles go into Vida, I've probably become hardened to it – and it has profound benefits for society.' How does she feel about Vida reading about herself in Lifeblood in the future? 'I feel quite guilty about the fact that for her first year I was just so sad, and I've been worried about what she might experience reading that. But I like to think that what comes across is extreme love.'
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Thunderstorm warning issued as parts of England and Wales face weekend deluge
Heavy rain, gusty winds and thunderstorms are set to hit parts of England and Wales on Saturday, with forecasters warning of possible disruption. A yellow weather warning for thunderstorms has been issued by the Met Office, coming into effect at 9am and lasting until 6pm. Forecasters said the weekend will bring frequent heavy showers – some thundery – with a chance of hail and strong winds. Up to 40mm of rain could fall in just a few hours, which is more than England saw during the entire month of May. Met Office data shows England recorded 32.8mm of rain last month – almost half the usual monthly average. Dan Suri, chief meteorologist at the Met Office, said: 'Frequent heavy showers and thunderstorms are expected for much of Saturday, before they fade from the west during the mid-to-late afternoon. 'It's possible that 10-15mm of rain could fall in less than an hour, while some places could see 30-40mm of rain over several hours from successive showers and thunderstorms. 'Frequent lightning, hail and strong, gusty winds are also possible.' He added: 'While brisk winds ensure that most places in the warning area will be hit by showers, not all places will see thunderstorms. 'In this case it's difficult to predict where exactly thunderstorms will hit because they are small and fast changing. 'One analogy we use to picture the complexity of this forecasting challenge is comparing it to boiling a pan of water and having to guess exactly where and when the bubbles will appear. 'We know some will, but only in certain places, and that is why thunderstorms are so hard to predict.' Conditions are expected to improve on Sunday, with a drier day forecast for many, though showers may linger in parts of the north and east.
Daily Mirror
3 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
UK weather maps show exact date '72-hour heatwave' to bake Brits in 28C
The exact date a '72 hour' heatwave could start has been revealed by exciting new weather maps - huge parts of the country are set to get scorching hot weather soon Weather maps have shown the UK is set to face a "72 hour" heatwave as some areas will be hit with scorching 28C weather. Days of rain and gloomy weather will be flipped on its head as the exact date the country will get heat and sunshine has been revealed. The UK could see the mercury soar to a staggering 28C just as the summer season gets underway. WX Charts weather maps have predicted a " heatwave" will hit parts of the country this month, on June 18 to 20. This could mean the nation could get its hottest weather of the year so far in just a few weeks. Weather charts have turned orange and red for huge parts of the UK on June 18. Cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester have turned orange on these maps, meaning they could be set for summery weather. The maps have turned darkest around Glasgow, meaning the Scottish city could see the hottest couple of days in the UK, at the end of the month. This means Brits could enjoy trips to the beach and afternoons in beer gardens fairly soon. Despite maps from WX Charts, this predication has not been backed up by the Met Office's long range weather forecast, though. It has predicted hot spells could be possible between June 11 and 20 but has not predicted a heatwave. The Met Office said: "Changeable weather across the UK at the start of this period with showers or some longer spells of rain spreading in from the Atlantic. The most prolonged rain will probably be across parts of northwest, with the southeast likely driest. "By Thursday, temperatures are likely to be trending upwards with the potential for very warm or even hot weather to develop, particularly in the south and east. "However, this also brings a risk of heavy showers and thunderstorms, especially over parts of England and Wales. From around the weekend of the 14th and 15th, high pressure is likely to start to have more influence. "This would bring periods of fine and dry weather, especially in south. Temperatures most likely above average with more hot spells possible." This good weather news comes as the UK is set to brace itself for a huge soaking this weekend as the Met Office issued a severe weather warning. Forecasters have predicted strong winds accompanied by potential hail could come on Saturday. A yellow thunderstorm warning was issued for a large area of the UK, warning power cuts could follow. A possible 40mm battering could hit the southeast, southwest, Wales, the Midlands and east of England - with the yellow thunderstorm warning in place between 9am until 6pm today. Several major cities are due for a soaking, including London, Reading, Brighton, Birmingham and Oxford.
