This Easter promises to be a rare event — a sunny Bank Holiday over almost the entire UK. The Met Office is predicting temperatures reaching 21C (70F), thanks to an anticyclone that seems reluctant to budge, except for a weather front threatening northern parts on Monday.

Easter weather varies hugely, but in recent years has tended to grow warmer. However, some of the hottest Easters were in the 1940s — April 1943 was the warmest April on record in England and Wales.

Easter 1949 was extraordinary. Good Friday, April 15, was gloriously hot and sunny, as the country basked in a subtropical airflow. Next day the temperatures soared to 29.4C (85F) in Camden Square, London, a record for April that still stands. A few thunderstorms spoilt things over northeast England on Easter Day, but the southeast remained dry and hot. Resorts were packed, and the Hampshire Chronicle was alarmed at record numbers of visitors crowding into Winches-ter’s high street: “It was almost impossible to forge a way through, and to attempt to cross the high street was a perilous exercise due to the constant stream of cars.”

That Easter heralded a blistering hot summer, with water rationing in parts of the South.