WHERE has all our seaside sunshine gone?Coastal residents have spent a frustrating week in chilly sea mists blanketing Felixstowe seafront - while just a few miles inland everyone has been basking in blistering temperatures.

WHERE has all our seaside sunshine gone?

Coastal residents have spent a frustrating week in chilly sea mists blanketing Felixstowe seafront - while just a few miles inland everyone has been basking in blistering temperatures.

Felixstowe is officially the sunniest spot in the UK - with 1,700 hours of sunshine a year.

But this week people driving down the A14 expecting a lovely day on the beach have been met with a wall of fog looming ahead of them, and people on the prom have needed fleeces to keep warm and been unable to see the sea.

In Felixstowe town centre, shoppers have watched as the mist - also known as a sea har - has rolled up Hamilton Road.

Temperatures inland may have been as high as 26C, but along the whole of the Suffolk coast it's been about 17C.

Traders who had been hoping for a good week in the sultry sun have been left kicking their heels.

Stan Harris, who runs the amusements next to the prom in Sea Road said: “It's been very frustrating.

“If you go inland, once you get past Trimley it's beautiful and really hot, but here it is just cold and misty.

“At the weekend, you couldn't even see the pier from the prom it was so bad and it hasn't really let up much all week.

“It's such a shame when the weather is so nice everywhere else.

“People just don't want cold drinks and ice creams when it is like this.”

Tell us your tips for keeping cool in the heatwave - write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

Why it's been so misty on the coast

CLOUD has been so thick along the coast that the sun hasn't been able to burn it off.

Evening Star weatherman Ken Blowers said low stratus cloud, mist and a north-east breeze blowing the fog in has been responsible for the lack of sunshine and nippy conditions.

Mr Blowers said: “If you go a few miles inland it is completely different but on the coast the low stratus cloud has just been too thick for the sun to dissolve.

“There has been as much as 20F difference in temperature from the coast to inland.

“Usually it is the other way round - you come down the A14 to Felixstowe with cloud over Ipswich and blue sky ahead of you.”