Since we’ve looked at the upcoming 2 week pattern in recent days, I thought I would take another look at the longer range since it’s probably a day to be indoors. Is it pouring where you are this morning?

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Went into the CFSv2 monthlies and was surprised to an extent at what the model had for May, granted we’re pretty much half way through but check out the UK, well above normal. Overdone? I think probably. It’s been rather wet which goes two ways as of now. This suggests that we should average out near normal this month but indeed Spain and Portugal’s way above normal for May looks probable.

As for June and July, there’s still no real guidance for the UK but I wonder if the model is seeing the wet ground, warm surrounding waters and the warming that’s now beginning to work down South America’s west coast. It continues to show below normal across southern Europe and the Med which I can see why, however Iberia is drier and has been considerably above normal through April which may alter the equation into June and July.

My concern is that we’ve had a pretty wet May and given the warm water around us, plus the El Nino coming on, we could have a wetter than normal summer. This is for sure a tough year forecast wise.

Let’s take a look at precipitation

May is very wet in the UK extending into southern Scandinavia while abnormally dry down over Iberia extending into France, that looks about right. However, take another look at the May temps, doesn’t add up in my opinion.

Here’s the slight head scratcher… had May been drier than normal like March and April, then I would have been more on board with the June precip chart. Given the way the pattern is evolving, I would hesitate to go for a dry June and in turn temps ‘should’ reflect this dry. In saying that the model may be holding back on the ‘warmer than normal’ because it’s seeing the wet ground. June precip vs temps reflect each other nicely over Iberia and across southern Europe. Wetter than normal equals cooler than normal.

As for July.

It appears to be going for a wet Scotland, dry England. Once again it has a very wet southern Europe while dry up through the Low Countries, Denmark into southern Scandinavia. Regarding the UK, the only thing I can say is this, perhaps the model is right with the dry June and to an extent dry July (England) but it may have an average, possibly below average summer temperature wise simply because the ground is never really going to dry out and this will have feedback to restricting the amount of ground warming throughout this summer.

By warming a wet ground, the sun draws that water up into the atmosphere and so a considerable amount of energy released towards earth is taken up with evaporation and in turn less heating the ground and lower atmosphere.

Global SST’s thus far.

It would be easy to panic and write off this summer, however it would appear the mid North Atlantic has cooled in the last 3 weeks which may be a good thing. Dry ground over Europe heart and north while cold water resides well west of the UK may support an Atlantic trough and Europe ridge in the means through the June-August period with a bounce back and fourth for the UK.

Notice though that we’re starting to see that warming push southward down SA’s coast, not sure whether this, combined with warm water and wet ground over the UK will increase summer rainfall or not. There can be a very fine line in SST’s which have massive impact and influence.

Tough forecast this year.

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