The English summer is here

Cold and pouring with rain one minute, warm and sunny the next - the English summer is here again and bringing with it a plague of snails.

Gloomy forecasters today said the unsettled weather is here to stay into next week and beyond with the culprit a band of high pressure centred over the Azores which is refusing to move.

The result is that cold, wet weather that should be in the far north is being drawn south and Britain is getting more than its fair share. The temperature is up to 10C lower than average for this time of year and, as anybody who has stepped out of their home without an umbrella will know, there is a good deal of wind and rain.

The South has already had almost all of the 2.5 inches of rain that usually fall during the whole of June and winds have been gusting at up to 50mph.

Forecasters predict a brief respite on Thursday and Friday, when temperatures will rise to 24C but Saturday will see the return of the wind and rain, which, it is feared, will continue beyond next week.

Britons who have flown to Spain and the south of France for a sunshine holiday are enduring similar weather.

A Meterological Office spokesman said: "For some reason the high pressure is staying where it is over the Azores, and so the cooler winds are finding their way through to us and contributing to the rain."

The weather has already wrecked the first day of the DFS Classic women's tournament in Birmingham this week.

The Queen's Club Stella Artois tennis tournament next week, traditionally the warm-up for Wimbledon, could also be a washout, forecasters warn.

They are more hopeful that the weather for Wimbledon week, starting 24 June, will be better, but there is still a chance it could be hit by heavy rain.

The wet conditions have been ideal for the common garden snail, or helix aspersa, which loves humid or damp conditions.

The average garden is home to more than 30,000 snails and slugs, which eat their way through five times their own body weight of vegetation each week. They love hostas and delphiniums and most vegetables, such as lettuce. Snails can live for up to five years, and in that time can lay 3,000 eggs.

The most miserable area of Britain yesterday was East Anglia, where temperatures failed to top 12C, and winds of 35mph cooled off what little warmth there was. Even the warmest place, Aberdeen, managed only 17C.

The temperature rose no higher than 16C in London yesterday.

Some parts of the country will see sunshine this week, but it will not last long. A southerly wind on Friday is expected to briefly push temperatures as high as 70F but rain and wind are expected again on Saturday.

Michael Dukes, a forecaster at the PA Weather Centre, said: "It may be tempting to think that summer is over already - but all is not lost yet.

"It is early days. Other years have recovered well from similarly bad starts. In 1995, most of the east coast did not see the sun for the first two weeks of June, but that was then followed by eight weeks of unbroken good weather. We even had a drought."

The PA Weather Centre said although today had started dry with sunshine there would be showers later. The temperature should be similar to yesterday, although the rain is not expected to be as heavy.

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