Issued: 0530hrs Thursday 25th August 2011
Duty forecaster: John Ejdowski

Hot through central Europe

Today
Heavy rain to come across England with showers into northern and central parts of France with the south of France dry, sunny and warm. Hot and sunny across Portugal into Spain and westward across the Balearics into Italy, Greece and Turkey. Much of eastern Europe also looks settled and summery with long sunny spells across Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia into Romania, the Ukraine and into Russia, Belarus, The Baltic States and Poland. Fine and sunny across Germany into Hungry, Austria and Switzerland. Mostly sunny across Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Finland and Sweden with rain forecast for Sweden.

Friday
Frequent heavy showers with thunder are expected across England today with an area of heavy rain across France and Belgium but dry in the extreme south of France. Rain too is forecast across Norway into Sweden with some heavy showers across Denmark and the extreme west of Germany. A strong cell of high pressure is going to give a large part of central and eastern Europe a fine, settled and sunny day. This fine weather stretches from central Germany across Poland into Russia and Finland and south across Romania, Hungry, the Ukraine into the former Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. A few showers for north west Spain today but mostly dry, sunny and hot across Portugal, Spain and eastward across the Balearics into Italy.