Festival-goers cheer Alt-J performing last year. Photo: Olivia Harris/ReutersFestival-goers cheer Alt-J performing last year. Photo: Olivia Harris/Reuters

Music fans will be hoping for dry weather during Glastonbury but with a mixture of sunshine and showers forecast, this year’s festival could well turn into a mud bath.

Wellies and raincoats will be essential items on festival-goers’ checklists along with sunglasses and sun cream when the gates are thrown open tomorrow.

Forecasters are not certain of the outlook until later on this week, but the fine weather that has been enjoyed recently is not set to last.

Emma Sharples, a forecaster with the UK Met Office, said: “It does look like things are going to slowly change through the next week.

“We can expect it to be cloudier and there will be some rain around but it will still be fairly warm.

“There’s no suggestion of there being any sort of heavy rain at the moment, it looks like there will just be short, sharp bursts of showery rain mixed with sunshine.”

Temperatures are expected to be in the high teens to early 20s, she added.

Organisers will be praying that the heavy rain that has blighted the festival in previous years will not be repeated.

The last time the Somerset site turned into a mud bath was in 2011, when revellers created a “welly graveyard” for footwear that had been destroyed by the difficult conditions under foot. A year earlier a heatwave saw the festival described as the “hottest ever Glastonbury”.

It saw thousands of people treated by on-site medical teams for sun stroke.

Forecaster George Goodfellow said: “Thursday looks like it’s going to be dry but after that there is a chance of showers. But all hope is not lost as it doesn’t look like it’s going to be persistent. It may well turn out to be one of those periods that is a mixture of sunshine and showers.”

More accurate predictions are expected as Glastonbury gets under way.

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