While Scotland has been spoiled by a stunning spell of weather with day after day of warm sunshine, our luck is about to run out as the thunderstorms which have plagued England, Wales and a large swathe of southern Europe are lifting north.

The west Highlands has been the place to be over the past week. Since last Saturday, temperatures have exceeded 25C somewhere in the west of Scotland beneath largely cloudless skies. The east and central region has seen a mix of haar and warm sun.

Those nasty thunderstorms we’ve seen on our tv screens here in Scotland will likely to over our heads tomorrow as heights lower and humidity rises.

Despite this breakdown, it remains very warm and muggy, hence the high likelihood of widespread thunderstorms.

https://twitter.com/BBCScotWeather/status/1002167705619845120

With high over low pressure, the fine, settled and very warm conditions has persisted across Northern Europe extending from Northern Ireland to Russia but low pressure and an abundance of heat and humidity, the skies have been turbulent with a tremendous amount of thunderstorm activity stretching from Turkey to southern Ireland.

Remember back to last weekend when Winterbourne near Birmingham received a month’s worth of rain within 1 hour with similar amounts falling within the Greater London area also.

As we hold onto the heat but lower heights and raise humidity, so Friday, Saturday and to a lesser extent Sunday all have the potential for widespread shower and thunderstorm activity with locally severe storms packing gusty wind, hail, frequent lightning and flooding rains. Intense 1-2 inch per hour rainfall rates are possible.

Note the low pushing in towards SW Ireland, this feature is helping increase instability over the UK.

With daytime heat lifting into the mid 20s, the atmosphere is primed with some pretty impressive storms.

Into next week and high pressure rebuilds from the north settling things back down once again.

Tags: scotland heat, scotland thunderstorms, uk thunderstorms