UK weather: Brits bask in 23C heat – with THREE more days of glorious sun on the way in hot September

THREE more days of glorious September sunshine are on the way – despite the UK officially entering autumn.

Summer shows no signs of stopping as temperatures hit 23C this afternoon and the heat will stick around into the weekend.

Most Brits can enjoy the warm spell, with England and Wales staying dry and bright until Sunday.

The mercury will reach highs of 23C in southern and eastern areas while hovering in the high teens further north.

Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin said: "Plenty more sunshine across much of the country today.

"Much of southern Scotland and certainly most of England and Wales will have another fine day of September sunshine.

"Temperatures are responding to that sunshine, heading up into the low twenties – 22C, maybe 23C across parts of the south east."

But sadly not all parts of the UK are quite so lucky, as rain and strong winds head for north west England, Northern Ireland and central Scotland.

And things will get even wetter overnight, with gusts of up to 65mph and the potential for severe gales across the Shetlands, the Met Office warns.

Temperatures will also drop to single figures, but will quickly rise again by morning.

It will be a "fine and sunny start" for much of the south on Thursday – and the few patches of fog and cloud will quickly clear, forecasters said.

Some showers will trickle down into south west England, and western Scotland will experience outbreaks of rain.

"But large parts of the country will again be dry and bright on Thursday with some sunny spells," Mr Deakin said.

"Temperatures will again respond to a bit of September sunshine and get into the low twenties, again 22C, 23C is possible."

On Friday there might be some patchy rain, but many places will stay dry with some more September sunshine and staying warm as well.

A Netweather forecaster said: "For a large part of England and Wales it will be another warm dry sunny day, with cloud in many western areas tending to break up. 

"Thursday will be a dry day with sunny intervals in north-east Scotland and, after a cloudy start, it will be dry and mainly sunny over much of England also.

SEPTEMBER SUNSHINE

"However, cloud and some light rain or drizzle will affect western Scotland, and other western areas will stay mainly cloudy for much of the day.

"This will again be reflected by the maximum temperatures, reaching 21 to 23C over much of central and eastern England, but only 11 to 13C over much of western Scotland and Cumbria. 

"The general northwest-southeast split will continue for Friday, with most eastern parts of the UK, especially the east and south of England, having plenty of warm sunshine, but cloudier weather in the west with some light rain in western Scotland, Cumbria and the higher ground of west Wales.

"The warmer, sunnier weather over the south and east looks set to spread to most parts of the UK during the weekend as the winds switch from a westerly direction to a southerly, the cloudy damp weather becoming largely confined to north-west Scotland.

"Temperatures will reach the low to mid-20s Celsius widely." 

Today marks the first day of astronomical autumn when the sun crosses the equator and is positioned exactly above it.

However, using the meteorological defintion, autumn began on September 1.

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