Glastonbury weather: "not as bad as last year"

If you're about to leave for Pilton, hold on a sec and get them wellies, as you'll be needing them for Glastonbury 2008.

As if the waving of rackets Wimbledon and the buying of vast quantities of cider, tents and wellingtons, was some kind of modern rain dance, the forecasters - who were predicting a dry Glastonbury - have backtracked somewhat on their previous predictions. BBC Weather is now predicting light showers today, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, in the Glastonbury area..

However, talking to the Guardian, a Met Office spokesman promised that it will be "not as bad as last year."

Let's just remind ourselves how bad those scenes were, last year (and the previous few Glasto's), which are probably one of the main reasons the festival, which usually sells out in an hour, still has 3,000 unsold tickets:

And, from last year...

And one more for, er, luck...

The spokesman, who himself attended the festival last year, continued: "Overall, there will be patches of rain throughout the weekend, with temperatures reaching a maximum of 20 degrees celsius. However, it will almost certainly be nothing like as bad as last year."

Glastonbury spokesman John Sherlaw welcomed the news today, telling the Guardian: "We're prepared for all eventualities and wouldn't let a bit of rain spoil the fun, but it is good to know that the conditions will be better than last year. The real issue is not the rain but the wind, getting those big top tents up can be very difficult if there's a high wind. The site can become too dry, at the moment I would say it's a bit dusty. A bit of rain would actually make it more pleasant."

Anyone wanting to subscribe to the BBC's RSS feeds of the weather (really is simple to do with most mobile phones) should head here. Those of us not going can watch coverage of the festival on the BBC and we're guessing via the BBC iPlayer.