Weather: Sunshine set to return to much of UK this week but Northern Ireland could miss out

Temperatures could rise to 13C or 14C by the middle of the week, with sunshine in a number of areas on Monday, the Met Office said.

But while Northern Ireland will see the milder temperatures, rain is forecast for most days and it could be the tail end of the week before we see the sun.

It comes after much of the UK has seen "anticyclonic gloom" over the past week, causing dull skies, with some areas not having seen the sun in more than a week.

The predicted temperatures of 14C by the middle of the week are well above February's average, with 6C the usual monthly average in Scotland and 9C in southern England , which will be a "noticeable shift" after the last fortnight which was below average, Met Office meteorologist Jonathan Vautrey said.

But it is not likely to be record-breaking, as February's highest temperature was 21.2C recorded in 2019 in Kew Gardens, he added.

Met Office meteorologist Tom Morgan said he did not expect any national records to be broken, but some areas could go 10 days without any sunshine, which is "near record-breaking".

He explained the gloom "dominating" the UK over the last two weeks has been caused by a "large anticyclone", or high-pressure system, which has been sitting over Scandinavia, bringing cold wind from the east.

"Those cold conditions have picked up a lot of moisture across the Baltic and North seas, and those moist conditions have led to a lot of clouds," he added.

"That's why we haven't seen much in the way of sunshine in most of the UK recently."