AS YORK awoke this morning, sunlight swathed the City Walls - and it's set to continue until Monday.

Beer gardens began to fill up and ice cream sellers were rubbing their hands with glee, as yesterday and Wednesday saw the hottest days this year.

Mike Elliott, senior technician in the weather centre at Askham Bryan College, said they recorded a maximum temperature of 16.2C on Wednesday.

"That's probably the hottest temperature we've had since last September or October," he said.

"We had nine hours of sunshine too, which is the most so far this year."

He said there was only one day last April when a higher temperature was recorded, and that was on April 25. "We've had more warm days in the first five days of this April than we had throughout the whole of the month last year," he said.

But he said temperatures had still been dropping to about two degrees centigrade overnight.

Brendan Jones, a forecaster at MeteoGroup, said the warm weather would continue over the Bank Holiday weekend.

"It might not be quite as sunny as yesterday," he said.

"There may be a bit more cloud, but it's going to remain dry. It will gradually warm up as the weekend wears on."

He said temperatures would peak at about 14C today, then 15C tomorrow and 17C on Sunday and Monday.