BRITS are to bask in a 17C Indian Summer which has been forecast to last until Halloween.
A plume of hot air from Africa will see temperatures rise in a run of warmer weather from Monday.
Swimmers from Selsey Seabathing Society taking a dip on a sunny morning in West Sussex
The Pilgrims Way on a sunny afternoon in Hampshire on October 15
Today will see sunny spells for many while Monday is expected to be dry with sunshine in the south as rain clears the north.
It will be a breezy start for some with any lingering showers across Kent and East Sussex easing away east.
Warm sunshine will follow with a maximum temperature 19C, but turn hazy later in the afternoon, as high cloud spreads north.
The north is expected to see mostly fine conditions, with high pressure bringing generally settled conditions from Wednesday, although with some bands of rain spreading.
Wednesday is expected to be the hottest day at around 22C.
Netweather forecaster Nick Finnis told the Daily Star: “Some computer models show 22C or 23C by midweek, bringing an Indian Summer.
“An exceptionally-warm plume of air from northwest Africa looks like being pumped across Europe and to Britain, with up to the low 30s in France, and over 20C in southern Britain.”
An ‘Indian Summer‘ means a period of unseasonably warm, dry and calm weather which can make for an Autumnal heatwave.
The mercury has soared to 30C on several occasions during the last week of the month.
October’s highest temperature ever recorded in the UK was 29.4C in the small market town of March, Cambridgeshire, on the first day of the month in 1985.
Met Office forecaster Marco Petagna said: “There’s a good signal for higher temperatures thanks to a southerly airstream with very mild or warm air.”
Sunny spells are expected amid showery periods in the South and West until the end of the month for Halloween.
The hotter temperatures follow four days of downpours as 47mph winds battered Britain.
The wet and windy weather arrived alongside an “active” jet stream off the Atlantic which has pushed rain up from southern England.
Around 32mm of rain (an inch) will fall across these areas and clear south-eastwards to leave sunny spells and showers later in the day.
Despite the arrival of wind and rain, temperatures remain mild for much of the UK.
Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin warned of the arrival of a wet weather front from the Atlantic will bring “more persistent rain” up from the south west on Sunday before the skies clear.
