The UK’s highest temperature of the year so far was recorded in Essex, with the warm weather expected to last until the end of the week.

Forecasters at Weatherquest said the 26.5C registered in Writtel, near Chelmsford, yesterday afternoon was the summer’s warmest to date - with more good news to come.

“It looks warm and mainly dry for the rest of the week, with high pressure moving in from the Bay of Biscay across north west Europe,” said forecaster Dan Holley.

“It should last until at least Friday with temperatures in the low 20s and should also be less humid than it has been.”

Moving into the weekend, however, Mr Holley, said a front from the north was likely to bring cooler weather with showers.

And looking further forward, Weatherquest’s long-term forecast is for even more unsettled weather.

Forecaster Chris Bell stressed such predictions were only indicators but warned that the outlook was less positive.

“Towards the end of the month and early in July the computer models are suggesting it turns a little bit more unsettled,” he said,

“It’s not going to be drastically cold but we could have rain showers towards the end of June and it looks like it’s going to turn a bit more unstable.”

The Met Office has also released its latest long-term forecast, with a more favourable outlook that Weatherquest.

According to its news blog: “The current outlook for the whole of the June-July-August period for the whole of the UK says the chance of the warmest scenario happening is 25 per cent and the chance that the period will fall into the coldest scenario is 10 per cent.”