It was a rather unsettled weekend across a large swath of Europe thanks largely to the sub-980mb low skirting southern Ireland and Britain. This low eventually fades as it slowly drifts south and east into the mainland continent.

Cold, arctic origin air will slowly filter southward late this upcoming week, potentially bringing high elevation snow and the return of night frosts.

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ECMWF surface charts for the week ahead.

As for the longer term, as stated in my recent summer 2014 official forecast, while we may have an El Nino coming on in the equatorial Pacific and with wet ground over the UK, one may suggest a cool, wet summer ahead, perhaps even a soaker like 2012 which was also a year with the onset of a nino.

However, I want to reiterate the point I’ve already made. Look at the eastern Pacific water temps around this time back in 2012 just as the hose was turned on over the UK.

Here’s now!

Note the one eye-catching difference.. waters are cold, not warm against and off South America.

That difference could be crucial in providing us with a warmer and much drier summer ahead despite having wet ground and warm water surrounding the UK. 2012 saw a super wet spring which laid to a super wet summer and year but the difference that I can see was the nino that tried to come on that year, was aided by warm water off SA which promoted wetter conditions, fuelled by surrounding warm water over the UK.

We’re seeing the trend to warmer, drier conditions over northern Europe while it’s fairly cool and rather wet across southern parts including the Med.

It’s very interesting to see the CFSv2 showing warmer, drier from the UK across to Russia and cooler, wetter from Spain east across the Med.

Precipitation

Temperature.

2003 was record hot for the UK and Western Europe, check out the striking similarity to now.

Late April 2003

Now

Be sure to check out the post on the El Nino as this take a close look at it’s potential role next autumn and winter on not just global temperature but for us here in the UK and Western Europe.

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