Britons look forward to warm summer

The UK is on course for a warm and dry summer, meteorologists have said.

The Met Office said it was "odds-on for a barbecue summer" with warmer than average temperatures and near or below-average rainfall.

But forecasters warned that this does not mean that the UK will escape some heavy downpours at times.

Ewen McCallum, chief meteorologist at the Met Office, said: "After two disappointingly wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year.

"We can expect times when temperatures will be above 30C, something we hardly saw at all last year."

The Met Office said that while there may be showers, a repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.

Mr McCallum said the cool, windy and wet summer of last year "hit the pits on the misery forecast" but said he was "quite optimistic" about the summer to come.

"Prolonged spells of warm weather are more likely," he said.

He also said the temperature differential between Spain and the UK was likely to close, but warned that while there was a two in three chance the forecast would be right, therefore there was a one in three chance it would be wrong.

He said a period of much higher pressure over the UK and Europe, a warm phase in the tropical Pacific region, and a weakening of the weather phenomenon known as La Nina - in which cold water rises to the surface and cools ocean and land temperatures - all pointed to a warm dry summer.