Sunny Spells Today But Heavy Rain On The Way

More sunshine and scattered showers on the way today and with temperatures heading up as high as 22-23c in southern regions and the high teens further north it should feel pretty pleasant. Now a warning - stop reading at this point if you're hoping this drier spell of weather is going to continue...

From late Wednesday and into Thursday low pressure will be making a return and that means a spell of wet and windy weather spreading northeast. The winds won't be especially strong at this point, peaking at 40-50mph but with the trees in full leaf it could being a hazard of the odd tree falling or branches being broken off - so something to bear in mind.

The rain will be the main story though, heavy or even torrential at times - with thunderstorms potentially embedded within it. This is likely to lead to totals of 25-50mm+ (with the larger amounts on higher ground) and this in turn could well mean some localised flooding and difficult travel conditions.

The rain band will continue to journey northeast during Thursday reaching Scotland later on in the day, behind it heavy and blustery showers with perhaps the odd thunderstorm will develop - helping to top up those rain totals.

Into Friday the low pressure makes it's way further north and as it does so there's a risk of the isobars squeezing and the winds increasing, some uncertainty on this and the most likely areas to be affected, but it's definitely something we'll be monitoring as it does bring the risk of gales or even severe gales to northern England, Northern Ireland, north Wales and southern Scotland.

There will also be more heavy rain or showers around during Friday and the wet and potentially very windy weather continues into the weekend..

Published on 20th June 2012 09:26 Updated: 20th June 2012 09:26