Britain has experienced its warmest Halloween on record.

The record of 20C (68F) set at Dartford in Kent in 1968 was beaten before noon when the temperature reached 20.5C (68.9F) in Filton, Bristol, the Met Office said.

It posted a tweet saying: "It's officially the warmest Halloween on record with Filton recording 20.5C."

The Met Office confirmed the mercury hit 19.6C at 1pm in Hurn – up from 12.9C this time last year.

The 20C barrier is expected to be exceeded later in the afternoon and people have been taking advantage of the last of the year’s warm weather by taking to beaches and parks across the area.

Conditions will cool to 15C tomorrow, but will still be around 50% higher than the November average of 10.8C for Bournemouth.

However, by Monday rain is expected to return with a decidedly chilly night time high temperature of 5C by Tuesday.

Forecasters say an unseasonably warm 21C (70F) could be recorded today in the South East, eight degrees higher than is normal for this time of year.

So far, 2014 is the warmest year on record, following consistently mild temperatures which have continued into autumn, weather forecaster MeteoGroup said.

But October will not break any records, despite being both warmer and wetter than average.

Nine out of the 10 months this year have seen above-average mean temperatures, with only August below average, the Met Office said.

The UK mean temperature for the month so far is 11C (51.8F), which is 1.5C above average - a few degrees short of the 12.2C (54F) record set in 2001.