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Scotland marks hottest day of the year in dry spell

BBC Weather Watchers/Michael Deveney People sit on the sand by the waterside on a sunny day. A town can be seen in the distance across the waterBBC Weather Watchers/Michael Deveney
People in Greenock flocked to the riverside as temperatures peaked

Scotland has marked its hottest day of the year so far as temperatures in parts of the country rose above 25C.

Auchincruvie, in South Ayrshire, and Tyndrum, in Stirlingshire, both recorded temperatures of 25.5C on Tuesday.

That beat the previous highest temperatures of the year on Monday by just 0.1C during the driest spring on record so far throughout the UK.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) said around half of the country was under a water scarcity alert.

Forecasters have warned low levels of rain are ahead for large swathes of the country in coming days.

Major rivers including the Clyde, Dee, Galloway and Nith are are subject to low water alerts.

Sepa said the warm dry weather came off the back of a drier than normal winter and autumn last year.

Eilidh Johnson, Sepa's senior manager in water industry, said river levels were lower at this time in the season than in previous years.

She said the current alert meant people should be aware that water flows are beginning to "show some signs of pressure from the dry weather".

Those who use water abstracts from rivers and lochs for business reasons should consider this before extracting it, she added.

The River Nith in Dumfries
The River Nith in Dumfries is among those under a low water alert

Ms Johnson told BBC Radio's Lunchtime Live: "We can restrict the amount of water that is taken but we would only do that when we've had really sustained dry periods and there are really low flows in the rivers.

"We've had below average rainfall throughout the winter and last autumn as well, and spring has been fairly dry.

"So we have come into the summer season with flows than we might expect to see. It has been very warm and dry."

She added: "They are lower at this time in the season compared to other years."

Will we ever see the rain?

So is Scotland now a dry country, albeit in the weather sense?

In Leuchars, Fife, it had not rained for 24 days as of Tuesday morning.

As a whole, the UK is only running at 80mm of precipitation – making it the driest spring on record so far.

BBC Scotland weather presenter Kirsteen MacDonald said parts of the country were going into their fourth straight week without rain.

She said "scarcely any" rain is forecast for the coming days.

"High pressure will dominate our weather throughout the rest of this week and into the beginning of next week, resulting in settled conditions with lots of sunshine," she said.

"Temperatures will remain significantly above average for many too."