SCOTLAND will have to wait at least another week for summer to arrive with the Met Office predicting the temperatures will be on a par with parts of Spain, other parts of the UK.
With another week of Easter school holidays left for families, freak snow falls caught walkers and cyclists on the hop in the Highlands, and even as far south as Dumfries and Galloway.
There was a coating of snow on Criffel, one of the highest hills in the region, and on other high ground near Dumfries.
Meanwhile, mountain bikers ploughed through the snow and slush and walkers wrapped up against a late backlash of winter conditions with snowfall in the Cairngorms.
Further snow fell in the south with areas of Dumfries and Galloway taking the brunt of the front.
Temperatures north of the Border will struggle to breach 10C, whereas London is likely to be warmer than parts of Spain with 24C today, and 16C in the south east.
It is predicated that the UK will enjoy around three months of summer weather but for Scotland the rays will not appear until after the end of the Easter break.
The rest of the country is enjoying continental temperatures, more rain is forecast for the northern parts of Scotland over the coming days.
The UK heatwave is expected to last until June, however, with hot temperatures more than twice as likely as below-average conditions.
Paul Mott, forecaster at MeteoGroup, said that after the snow, the weather will be "quite a bit different over the next few days."
"It will certainly turn much warmer," he said. "Across England and Wales it will be dry, bright and there will be lengthy periods of sunshine."
On Tuesday, Scotland will again have a "disappointing" maximum of 15C (59F), Mr Mott said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article