Britons could be basking in hotter weather than Athens and Barcelona by the end of the week, after the Met Office forecast a south-east high of 26C on Friday - outstripping the 25C predicted for Greece and 21C for Spain.
The warm-up follows a notably cold start to May, during which a spell of northerly winds dragged Arctic air across the country, pushing daytime temperatures 3C to 5C below the seasonal norm.
While May typically brings highs of around 17C to 18C, much of the month has seen daytime peaks of just 9C to 14C.
The week opens with an unsettled picture — broken spells of sun interrupted by showers and the possibility of thunder, with a band of rain pushing across the country as the day draws on. Blustery conditions are expected to follow on Tuesday.
Met Office forecaster Craig Snell said: "The first half of this week is still going to be changeable, if not unsettled, across parts of the UK. Temperatures at the start of the week are still a little subdued for the time of the year, as we head towards the weekend we are expecting to see a change."
From Thursday the picture brightens considerably, with settled and sunny conditions establishing themselves across England and Wales and the mercury pushing toward a 26C peak in the south east by Friday.
Snell said the general trend pointed to warm conditions persisting into the coming weeks. "The best of the sunshine across the bank holiday weekend will probably be across England and Wales.
Temperatures are still above normal, potentially very warm again, but it's a bit too far in the future to get maximums," he said.
He added that the outlook for the bank holiday had improved significantly. "Indications are at the moment that the bank holiday looks a lot better than what we've had over the last week or so."
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