The simply stunning weather we’re currently enjoying looks set to persist through the next 3 days at least with morning mist, low cloud and fog quickly burning back to the coast as the strong July sun heats the ground. Daytime temperatures will continue to sharply rise into the 22 to 27C range, locally 28-29C over Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland as well as the Republic, 30-32C over southern England. These highs are still slightly off those of last July with it topped 30C in each of the UK nations but it’s getting close!

As your well aware, this stable, warm air mass is all thanks to a near 1030mb surface high pressure core centred over the Norwegian Sea with an upper ridge topping 582dm, providing large-scale sinking which means little in the way of cloud and big time warmth.

Note in the below 500mb chart off the ECMWF that 582dm ridge spans from Azores all the way to northern Scandinavia. The stronger the upper ridge, the warmer, more stable the air mass is with greater depth of sinking! This high is one of the stronger that we experience here during the summer months.

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If your not a fan of this warmth, head to the coast where it’s always cooler, especially North Sea coasts where mist/sea fog and low cloud is likely to linger providing highs of 15-18C.

Today’s highs.

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Notice the cooler temperatures over Scotland by Saturday. Is the models seeing change?

Both GFS and ECMWF has more north-south divide with the core of the ridge shunted to the SW nearer the Azores starting this weekend.

ECMWF surface over the UK at 18z Saturday (102 hrs)

GFS (90 hrs)

Next week has a different look to it. Wetter (at times) across Northern Ireland and Scotland, always drier, brighter and considerably warmer the further south you head.

If the model is correct, this should mean a drier and more settled regime for soggy central Europe as next week progresses.

GFS ensemble looking largely above normal across Europe through the next 16 days including the UK and Ireland.

7-14

9-16

See today’s video for discussion.

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