It’s getting ever close to July and the middle month of meteorological summer. My summer forecast is based upon June, July and August and I guess it’s time to look at what’s happened so far and how the forecast overall is playing out.

As for the pattern through the rest of this week and into next, it’s safe to say that high pressure looks to be the dominant feature on the map, however, it’s not the strongest of ridges and with a weak northern periphery, Scotland and Northern Ireland will see spells of wetter, windier and cooler weather.

As for the bulk of England and Wales, conditions are more settled and warmer over the next few days with highs of 18-22C. Though not particularly warm for late June, the focus is on high pressure.

According to the ECMWF, we should mainly dry conditions persistent UK-wide through Thursday but later in the day into Friday, a corridor of rain is seen riding the northern periphery of the Azores ridge, bringing wet weather across the UK Friday and Saturday. However, the good news is this is seen to clear out by Sunday.

Friday

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Sunday

So, while the next 48 to 72 hours appear good with a mix of sun and cloud as well as relatively warm, it once again turns unsettled for a time. This season so far has been somewhat transient or progressive, like we’ve seen across the pond too. Interestingly, the hemispheric pattern over the last 6 months has very much been a progressive one, although the speed of the ridge-trough pattern has varied depending upon variation oscillation indexes.

For us here in the UK and Ireland, the season so far has seen a 50-50 mix but a slight edge perhaps on warmer, drier and brighter during June. As the title above states, we’re entering this summer’s crunch time, make or break when it comes to the pattern over the next 4-8 weeks. The next 8 weeks makes or breaks yet another seasonal forecast and truthfully, I am quite happy at how things are playing out. Although there’s been errors, like there always will be in this business, I think my forecast up until now is playing out well. We’ve seen the spells of warmth and longer spells of settled weather, always followed by a temporary breakdown. Soils aren’t wet enough for the washout like we saw last summer and so it’s game on for July which I stand by the idea of warmer and drier than normal with a spell of very warm to hot.

While the CFSv2 has actually backed off on the warmer than normal July, I stand strong with my idea.

Models show wetter conditions late Thursday through Saturday but with bright spells in between and the return of higher pressure and more settled conditions Sunday into Monday. By Tuesday, another system spreads rain across the Northern UK but these arms of rain, associated with lows passing to the north, are glancing blows with stronger heights down to the south.

Here’s the ECMWF surface charts into next week.

Sunday

Tuesday

The emphasis very much appears to be 24-36 hours of unsettled followed by 24-36 hours of settled, sunny and warmer across Northern Ireland, Scotland and Northern England with drier, brighter and warmer more permanently across the South.

Here’s the upper chart for next Tuesday-Wednesday, notice the more westerly flow but heights are fairly strong and 850s fairly warm.

Tuesday

Wednesday

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