I wrote an article a few years ago stating that the flip in the long term UK summer pattern from warmer, drier to cooler, wetter can be traced back to 2007. The summer of 2006 was hot and dry, producing the UK’s hottest July temperature on record while the summer which followed, turned out to be the second wettest on record. The possible reason? I believe it is largely down to the Pacific flipping from a warm to cold phase while the North Atlantic remained warm. The summers of 2003, 2005, 2006 were all dry and warm and when you look at the oceans in those years, both Pacific and Atlantic were warm. This global-scale ocean temperature imbalance, to me, appears to provide a plausible explanation for the increase in UK and Ireland summer rainfall. You only have to go back to as recent as the 1950s and early 60s to see an eerily similar trend with the increase in summer precipitation with a cold Pacific, warm Atlantic. There are many other periods of increased summer rain which can all be tied back to Pacific and Atlantic water temperatures. The fact we have warm and cold, explains the increase in seemingly more ‘extreme’ weather and it’s wild variability from one spring, summer, autumn and winter to the next.
While one may want to use the CO2 argument as the cause of this upswing in gloomier summers, explain to me how ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’ can be the cause when not only have we seen this very setup lasting several years at a time, in the past but the earth’s temperature has been falling for the past decade and continues to fall. So CO2, while rising, is not being followed by an increase in temperature. In just the last month or so, the Met Office have had to admit that the rise is not there and this was not what was anticipated.
Source: Met Office
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The back and forth nature of El Nino and La Nina can enhance summer rainfall or provide breaks in between but I think, until the Atlantic returns to it’s cold phase, the general consensus will be on cooler, wetter summers here, for perhaps the next 10 or so years. Like I say, this is a theory I’ve had for several years now.
As for this summer, well you should know by now that I’m going for a drier and ultimately warmer summer this year. We of course all know too well what last summer was like.
It was of course the wettest in 100 years. Last spring was exceptionally warm and dry to start and my belief is that once the La Nina gave way to a weak El Nina (equatorial Pacific went from cool to warm, near South America), that was when the tap was turned on here but the effect was magnified by one of the strongest cold signals and thee strongest Atlantic warm signal.
I could be wrong, but my hunch is that last summer was a peak in our wet summer cycle as I don’t think the Pacific will remain as cold nor will the Atlantic be as warm. It’s not this year, aided by the cold spring and shouldn’t be in coming years. Last year was likely the ‘peak’ in the current warm phase of the AMO. It seemed everything came together both in multi-year and multi-decadal cycles which produced our ‘wettest summer in 100 years’.
Our atmosphere has a tendency to go from one extreme to the other. In the United States for example, we saw exceptional drought in the Midwest last year which produced a very hot summer, this year it turned the other way and is too wet and is likely to produce a cooler than normal summer. Although I’m not screaming drought, I wonder whether we could go from exceptional wet last year to drier than normal this year during the heart and second half of summer. After all I am going for a drier, warmer July and August.
The colder, drier spring and the neutral ENSO will likely shift things around this summer, bringing us the best UK-wide July potentially since 2006.
While low pressure looks to dominate the UK this weekend, next week looks to see the dry and warm weather return as heights build, supported by the +NAO which holds heights up over the UK in the means through next weekend, despite ‘temporary’ breakdown this weekend.
Here’s the ECMWF chart from next Tuesday on.
Tue 25
Wed 26
Thu 27
The (below) NAO ensemble supports more ridging and warmth next week but notice it shows a return to negative towards July… That’s our next proper breakdown. This weekend is temporary and won’t be a washout.
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