UK weather: Met Office issues warning 'meaningful rain' expected this week

The UK is set to experience showers over the coming days, but the rainfall is "not going to solve the drought situation overnight", a forecaster has warned.

Some parts of the country will receive the "first meaningful rain for a long time" this week, according to the Met Office , following a summer of heatwaves and prolonged dry spells that have left numerous areas facing serious water shortages.

However, forecasters cautioned that the rainfall would not be a "huge amount" and would be "highly hit and miss from place to place", before conditions turn drier again at the weekend.

In an online forecast, Met Office meteorologist Aidan McGivern described Wednesday as a "very showery day" across the UK, with Northern Ireland and parts of western and central Scotland bracing for "frequent showers with heavy downpours, hail and thunder".

Showers would be "fewer and further between" in southern regions, while central England and eastern Wales could still experience some heavy downpours, the forecaster added.

He said: "I suspect many people across England and Wales will at least enjoy the feel of some rain falling out of the sky during the next few days, but it's not going to solve the drought situation overnight because we're not expecting huge amounts and it will be highly variable because a lot of it will come in the form of showers."

On Wednesday, temperatures are expected to reach highs of 25C in London, 20C in Cardiff, 19C in Manchester and 16C in Glasgow, according to the weather service. Thursday will kick off with some "very heavy rain" across parts of northern England and north and west Wales with frequent showers in the southwest, Mr McGivern said.

The afternoon will bring a "better chance" of showers further south and "dumping a reasonable amount of rain in places", he added.

"But again, because they're showers, it will be hit and miss, very speckled in nature," he said.

Temperatures will be below average across much of the UK on Thursday, which is "something we've seen on only a handful of days this summer," the forecaster continued.

A hosepipe ban came into effect for all of Wessex Water's 1.4 million customers across areas in Bath, Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire on Tuesday. It marks the first ban the company has imposed in 50 years, since the summer of 1976.

Meanwhile, Thames Water has called on its customers to keep reducing water usage after household demand dropped by 3% across London and more than 6% across the Thames Valley and home counties since it introduced a hosepipe ban on July 23.

In an update on Tuesday, the utility revealed that London reservoir storage stood at 74%, lower than the firm would typically expect for this time of year, while the Farmoor Reservoir in Oxfordshire was 92% full. According to the company, rainfall in the Thames catchment area during July was less than 1mm, which is just 2% of the long-term average, while customers used approximately 100 million litres more water every day than usual, heaping further pressure on rivers, reservoirs and the water network.

More than 27 million people across England have now had hosepipe use restricted in their area after months of hot and dry weather.