UK weather forecast: Wet and cold spring could be swept away by balmy bank holiday

The weather was fabulous over the weekend - if you were running 26.2 miles through central London!

The traditional burning heat of the event was, for once, replaced with something far more comfortable to run in! 

For the rest of us, longing for Spring to finally start, it was more of the same - coolish, cloudy-ish, wet-ish. Meh. 

We start the week in the same vein - plenty of cloud and heavy, thundery rain moving in from the west with bright spells and showers elsewhere - and for everyone a cold northerly wind that knocks back even the modest highs that barely scrape into the low teens. 

Skies clear across the UK overnight tonight leading to some very cold conditions; potentially as low as -7C across rural parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland.

But these clear skies will make the possibility of catching the breathtaking beauty of the Northern Lights a real possibility across the north of the UK.

Northern Lights could be seen in parts of the UK this week

Something brighter is on the cards for Tuesday though. Clear overnight skies give gorgeous, crispy sunshine to start the day.

More cloud bubbles up into the afternoon with rain moving into the south-west later in the day but it's dry and sunny in the main albeit it with, again, a very cold northerly wind. 

For Wednesday again it's cold everywhere with rain in the south and wintry showers in the north but the weather starts to change to something more unsettled but increasingly mild (even warm!) by the end of the week as we lose the cold northerly winds and start to draw in a feed of warm air in from the southwest.

Changing pressure could see high temperatures across the UK over the weekend

Highs could even reach 20C in the south by Friday, with that warmer air spreading into northeastwards over the weekend - which, I think you'll agree, would feel positively balmy!  

Amazingly, bearing in mind we don't really seem to have properly started Spring yet, we move into its final month on Monday where we are likely to finally see a spell of more settled weather developing.