Today is expected to be a day of sunshine and showers for much of the country, with weather gradually improving into the weekend.

Saturday and Sunday are forecast to be mostly dry – with temperatures reaching as high as 25C in parts, the Met Office said.

But severe thunderstorms and downpours could return early next week – potentially bringing further disruption across the country.

“Today will certainly be less eventful than the last couple of days,” said meteorologist Craig Snell.

“Today will certainly be less eventful than the last couple of days”

Craig Snell

“The heaviest and most frequent showers will be up across Scotland, where there is a risk of a few thunderstorms.

“But not on the scale of what we saw across southern parts of the UK on Tuesday night and into yesterday.

“For the longest day of the year on Friday, England and Wales will have a fairly dry and bright day with some good spells of sunshine.

“Scotland and Northern Ireland will have a continued risk of some showers but they will be few and further between.”

After a fine weekend, storms will roll in from the west from Sunday evening, he added.

“After the brief calm and more settled spell, we will potentially see another spell of heavy rain and severe thunderstorms into next week.

“Watch this space.”

It comes after torrential rain and a “spectacular electrical storm” lashed parts of the country on Tuesday night.

Homes were left without power and roads were flooded in parts of the South East, while Lenham in Kent saw 1.7in of rain in the space of just one hour.

The Met Office said there were 41,000 “cloud to cloud” lightning strikes over the UK sea, northern France and Low Countries overnight.

Some 358 of those were from clouds to the ground over the UK.

A netweather.tv spokesman said: “Friday is the Summer Solstice and in a timely manner for a change, high pressure will build in from the south during the day, so although there will be some showers at first affecting mostly northern and northwestern parts, many places will be or become dry and fine through the day.

“Just a few showers may keep going in the far north-west.

“High pressure still in charge taking us into Saturday, so most places staying dry and fine with decent sunny spells, with any showers confined to the far north, temperatures up a notch on Friday’s – reaching 18C in the north to 22C in the south.

“Sunday may start dry and fine for many. Eastern areas likely staying dry, bright and warm, with a southeasterly flow lifting temperatures as high as 22 to 24C in the south.”

• Met Office
• UK weather
• Weather forecast

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