A hailstorm swept London on Wednesday morning as temperatures plunged across the capital, leaving pavements and gardens rattled by bursts of ice as the day began. Londoners shared video of the hail striking the streets, while Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and his wife, Lady Victoria, were caught in it as they made their way from 10 Downing Street to the House of Lords for the State Opening of Parliament.
The Met Office said temperatures were set to hover around 12C throughout much of Wednesday, making London colder than Helsinki, where the forecast high was 17C, and Oslo, where 15C was expected. For a city more used to mild spring weather than hail, the comparison was striking, and it came on the same morning the government marked one of the calendar's biggest set-piece events.
The cold was not expected to end with the storm. London was forecast to reach only 14C on Thursday and 15C on Friday, before a sharper rise later in the month. Weather reported highs of 24C from Thursday, May 21, to Saturday, May 23, and said temperatures would stay above 20C into the following week, when many London schools move into May half-term.
That swing leaves the city with a brief reminder that spring can still snap back into winter-like conditions before turning quickly warmer again. The immediate picture is a wet, cold midweek in the capital, but the larger shift is already on the way, with next week set to feel far closer to summer than the hailstorm that hit on Wednesday.
