Right, don't get too excited, but Wednesday might actually be nice.

Forecasters are saying parts of eastern England could reach 17-18°C tomorrow. That's 64°F for anyone keeping score. Properly warm. T-shirt-and-optimism weather.

Tuesday already managed 16.4°C in Epping Forest, making it the warmest day of 2026 so far. A shift to south-westerly Atlantic winds is behind it. The same system that's been chucking rain at us for weeks has finally decided to be useful and bring some mild air instead.

To put 18°C in February into context: the last time we saw that temperature was 13th November. Three months ago. The all-time February record is 21.2°C, set at Kew Gardens on 26th Feb 2019. We won't quite match that, but we'll get close enough for it to feel almost continental.

Southern and eastern England gets the best of it. Sunshine, a gentle southerly breeze, the lot. Up north and out west there'll be more cloud and some drizzle, because there's always a catch.

Speaking of catches.

The warm spell won't last. By the end of the month temperatures drop back to average. And while it's been drier this past week, the ground across huge chunks of the country is still completely sodden from weeks of biblical rain. The Environment Agency reckons flooding risks will hang around into March.

Western Scotland will cop the worst of whatever rain comes next. Eastern England should stay fairly dry, which is the normal pattern for this time of year, even if nothing about this winter has felt normal.

So: enjoy Wednesday. Go for a walk. Sit outside a pub. Eat a sandwich on a bench. Do whatever British people do when the sun comes out unexpectedly and we collectively lose our minds.

Just keep an umbrella in the car. You know how this goes.