Following what’s been a warm, very dry March and April for the UK, Ireland and much of north/central Europe, it’s been a cool and very wet spring for Iberia. That changes this week as a trough deepens over the Atlantic and dives southward towards the Azores while strong high pressure spins over Europe.
With Atlantic low pressure digging south and Europe high to the east, a strong southerly flow will draw hot Africa origin air up over Iberia and will likely produce Europe’s first 40C of 2022 by the end of this week. Unusual? Perhaps a bit but temperatures reached 42.9C setting a new Spain and Europe May record back in 2015.
Meanwhile the UK finds itself too close to the Atlantic trough and so while a warm, humid southerly flow will sweep partially over the UK, low pressure looks to win the battle for British air space.
Quite a different rainfall anomaly chart this week vs what’s been seen so far this spring.
The March + April 2022 rainfall in eastern Spain ranks as the wettest March + April in the period 1961-2020 (using a model estimate kindly supplied by @WorldClimateSvc) pic.twitter.com/cK5iDx6In6
— Simon Cardy (@weather_king) May 8, 2022
Upcoming 7 day rainfall anomaly.
The dry April 2022 follows a recent trend likely due to solar and La Nina.
Interestingly each of the last 3 Aprils (2022, 2021 & 2020) all had a high pressure anomaly over or to the northwest of the U.K. Each April was dry and sunny with low winds for the U.K, but temps were mixed. (map credit @WorldClimateSvc) pic.twitter.com/tUJx18P0T9
— Simon Cardy (@weather_king) May 8, 2022
As we’ll see often this week, disturbances meeting warmth and humidity mean only one thing, showers and thunderstorms with the potential for flooding. Scotland looks to be fresher with ‘continental warmth’ never truly making it, That being said, temperatures will rise in the sunshine to between 16-20, locally 21C.
By no means it’s a washout, in fact, lengthy sunshine between systems will allow temperatures to respond nicely, particularly Tuesday as temperatures could widely reach the low to mid 20s in southern and eastern England, 26C around London.
For much of Iberia, temperatures rise through the week as winds blow out of the south with 30s expanding and intensifying over the ‘oven of Spain’, likely peaking at 40-42C late week or the weekend. France could see mid to high 30s!
FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: wxcharts.com
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