You know it’s been cold when on May 9th your talking about Britain’s first 21C in 5 weeks.
An unusually deep low held off SW Ireland thanks to strong ridging over Europe is acting as a bit of a heat pump, driving the warmest air since March, if not the year up through Spain, France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.
The Basque Country of France observed a high of 33.1C yesterday, the country’s warmest day of 2021.
Warmest day of the year in #France with up to 33°C in Basque Country.#heat @MarkVogan @ScottDuncanWX @ASophie_MM @capitalweather @extremetemps https://t.co/8xSrzUugsx
— Thierry Goose (@ThierryGooseBC) May 8, 2021
Trapped between the Atlantic low and Europe high is a near stationary, moisture rich front with source tapping the sub-tropics. Stuck over the Welsh mountains, nearly 114mm of rain has fallen within 24-hours.
Parts of south Wales have seen #rain totals build over the past 24 hours thanks to a slow moving front.
Croeserw saw 113.8 mm of rain from Sat 06:00 to Sun 00:00 (data courtesy of @NatResWales). ?️?️?️
Since midnight a further 8-12 mm has fallen in that area.
Check it out ? pic.twitter.com/6EWClPvMHt
— Met Office (@metoffice) May 9, 2021
Today should see the warmth spread north, northeast bringing widespread low to mid, locally upper 20s as far north as Germany.
This warmth never truly makes it across the channel and so with enough sunshine, 21, perhaps 22C is most likely somewhere in an area from London across to Ipswich up to Norwich and west to Cambridge.
The below GFS surface chart nicely illustrates today’s setup with the ‘heat wheel’ SW of Ireland drawing the warmth north aboard southwest winds over mainland Europe.
Note how the warmest 850s (yellow) remains over mainland Europe. This illustrates that UK airspace is more influenced by the low rather than high and thunderstorms could pop readily, anywhere over south, eastern England close to the front separating cool-maritime from warm-continental.
GFS has 20C over East Anglia. With sunshine, I suspect 21, maybe 22C.
25C over inland Benelux this afternoon. Could see warmer due to dry ground.
At this stage in the year, it’s unusual to see mid 20s in March followed by only a 20.7C UK max during April and some 5 full weeks later only flirting with 21C on May 9.
Once today passes, the low establishes itself more over the UK and so nudges the front and warmth east deeper into the continent. Here in the UK we can wave goodbye to 20C for another week at least.
The below 850 temp charts shows how cool-maritime air erases the warmth even through Benelux, so here too it’s back to fresh 16-20C air.
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