Glorious sunshine for millions, floods and fires for others - but rain will be back by the weekend

The heatwave is due to come to an end by the end of the week as rain moves in from the south, according to weathermen, but not before the month of May is propelled into the record books as having the warmest beginning since 1772.

It was not all sunshine and smiles yesterday as frustrated families were mopping up after flash floods brought misery to Wales and the North West.

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On Merseyside, torrential rain on Sunday night left anxious residents piling sandbags against their front doors as water poured through in Childwall, Dovecot, Broad Green and Gateacre.

The fire brigade said it took "hundreds of calls", with some families stranded in their homes.

The terminal at Liverpool's John Lennon Airport was also flooded, triggering an evacuation.

Linda McTavish, 51, of Dovecot, said: "The water was 4in deep in my living room. I was out at the time but when everyone told me my house was flooded I was terrified.

"I almost expected to come home and find Tessa, my labrador, floating on the water."

But elsewhere, in scenes more reminiscent of a scorching August than the tail-end of spring, firefighters battled to contain flames ripping through gorse land after the first wildfires of the year struck near Yelverton on Dartmoor.

For much of the country, though, it was merely another day of enjoyable sunshine.

Temperatures peaked at an unseasonable 26c (79f) in Lee-onthe- Solent in Hampshire and at 25c (77f) in Exeter, Bournemouth and Heathrow, all warmer than Athens and the Algarve, which could only manage 20c (68f).

The temperature in Central England – covering a triangular area between Bristol, Lancashire and London – was 15.1c (59.2f) on average over the first ten days of May.

That is the warmest for the period since records of the area – the world's oldest weather log – began in 1772.

For Scotland it has been the warmest first week of May since 1990, while for England, Wales and Northern Ireland it has been the warmest since 1995.

However, in parts of the North West and southern Scotland, low cloud and north-easterly winds kept temperatures down to an almost chilly 10c (50f).

And the Met Office warned that the heatwave is finally coming to an end for the rest of us, with thundery showers expected to begin sweeping across Britain by Thursday, heralding a weekend of unsettled weather.

The Met Office's John Hammond said: "Over the next few days it will get less warm – although it will still be above average for May.

"By Friday things will be getting unsettled, and the weekend will see showers in the South moving up to the North and West."

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