THE summer sun which has been conspicuous by its absence in the past few days will return later this week and we can expect to see plenty more of it before the season ends.

A temperature of 18.1 degrees centigrade made Sunday the coolest day for almost two months - the summer's previous coolest one was June 26, when it was 17.6 degreese - and had people throughout the county turning on the central heating and looking for woolly jumpers. However, Worcester News weatherman Paul Damari has reassured people that it is far too early to put away the sun lotion.

He said: "It has been a glorious summer so far but the last few days haven't been so good. The fact that the cooler weather has coincided with many people's holidays makes some people feel more down about it."

"During August we have seen some very good temperatures - we had 30.2 degrees on Sunday 5 and 27.6 on Tuesday 8. The average temperature should be about 22 degrees.

Mr Damari said cooler north-westerly winds coming in from the Atlantic was the cause of the temperatures dipping, but warmer south easterly air from the continent would see temperatures going up to 24-25 degrees by Thursday or Friday.

However, there would be some cloud and the possibility of occasional showers.

He added that the baking temperatures well into the 30s that we saw during July is unlikely to be repeated this year.

He said: "July and early August is when we can see the hottest temperatures but there is more sunshine to come but we can expect short lived thundery and showery spells.

"Also, September can often be a good month and although the days are shorter we can expect more warm sunshine."