Heavy showers seen across parts of England on Friday evening will be offset by dry and fine conditions over the weekend.

Thunderstorm warnings were in place across most of south-east England until the end of Friday, the Met Office said.

Forecasters “probably won’t need” to extend them into Saturday although heavy rain persists in the South West and Wales.

Meteorologist Steven Keates said: “We have got some heavy showers around in a line from South West towards Dorset, Hampshire way at this point – nothing especially disruptive.

“In Wales and south west England there are some clusters of showery rain which could bring some heavy bursts very locally – probably not to the extent mentioned in the warning.”

There were concerns earlier over potential travel disruption as holidaymakers began to set off following the start of the school break.

Clouds on Saturday morning should later make way for afternoon sunshine, with temperatures expected to reach 29C in London.

Mr Keates said: “There will still be dribs and drabs of drizzly rain in places but the amount of rain at this stage should probably not be much.

Summer weather July 20th 2018
A satellite illustration of the UK on July 15 2018, as the heatwave has caused the green land to turn a yellow-brown colour under the dry conditions (Nasa)

“Most places will see some sunshine by the afternoon but there still will be quite a lot of cloud in some places – it won’t be wall-to-wall sunshine.”

Sunday will be the better of the two days, with England seeing “fine, dry weather, sunny spells”, with the mercury rising above 30C .

The South East and parts of Wales will experience temperatures in the mid-20s, rising on Sunday, while north-west Scotland will see cloudier and wetter conditions.

As of Wednesday, the UK had just 1.85in (47mm) of rain, making it the driest start to summer in modern records which date back to 1961, followed by 2013 with 2.3in (59mm) of rain.