Going to take a look at the ECMWF perspective on the next 7-10 days as I’ve focused a lot recently on the GFS.

Bertha certainly left her mark and is slowly winding down over the North Sea but unfortunately, her cool, showery farewell looks to linger into Thursday and Friday before a low near Iceland takes centre stage with further ‘increased’ showers, longer spells of rain and wind.

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Before I get there, I want to show you something I thought was pretty cool last night.

Check out the below chart captured off my phone. Centre of tightly wound Bertha is seen on the MeteoEarth (App) windstream spinning directly over Shetland last night.

Have you also noticed the wind feel distinctly colder, especially across the north?

Note a low over Iceland and Bertha is drawing on arctic origin air…

While temps and ‘wind chill’ aren’t too out of the ordinary, it feels worse because our pattern has been so consistently mild or warm over the past 2 months or so. Afterall, the South of England remains in the 20-24C range and while Scotland and N Ireland is well down at 14-18C, it’s only a few degrees off normal and normal are now dropping as we enter mid-August.

As stated already, Bertha is in a weakening phase and fills pretty much by late Thursday but she leaves in her wake a rather significant trough with pulses of energy riding the NNW upper flow from Iceland to the UK (western flank of the trough), this will INCREASE shower activity over the UK tomorrow (Thursday) while today sees some respite. Following Bertha, which has ultimately dictated much of Europe’s weather, leaves behind a large pool of cool, showery, breezy weather for late week.

ECMWF surface by 72 hrs.

500mb height anomalies show the trough.

By Friday, the Icelandic low appears to be stronger, sending a front into the UK.

That low swings across the Norwegian Sea for the weekend, filling the void left by Bertha which reinforces our unsettled theme across Ireland, the UK and western flank of the mainland. Another, cool discharge of late summer arctic air appears likely, going by the isobars.

If the model is right, the Southeast may finally get a day which fails to hit 21C. Look at the coverage of below normal temps to start off next Monday!

That low eventually slides east of Scandinavia, making way for another low to push up from the SW into the UK mid next week.

ECMWF certaintly isn’t as aggressive with the lows as the GFS but I would use caution, the GFS was spot on with a deeper Bertha and this is a pretty loaded pattern right now. Lot’s of rain will come in with these lows as they feed off the abnormally warm surrounding waters. Cold air riding over warmer than normal water increases the precipitable water content of the atmosphere as well as increases convective energy.

Below normal heights linger through the remainder of August.

GFS Ensemble.

Here’s the NAO which is going firmly negative which supports the western Europe trough the rest of August. However, it do feel we get another last taste of summer-like weather (probably Sept) before it’s over.

I’ve said it once and i’ll say it again, my August idea has been wrong. I thought it would be warmer and drier (with unsettled in between), not hands down cooler and wetter. However, in my defence, I knew a flip was coming, I was just too slow, thinking the ridging would last well into August.

Getting the timing right is tough. Had I went by the models then I would have ended the ridge pattern sooner but in saying that, had I went by the models to begin summer then I would have busted the entire summer rather than just at the end because the short, medium and long range models DIDN’T see the warm, dry summer overall but I had a strong feeling and plus going by the spring pattern and many other aspects, that this summer would be good.

BTW, interesting trend showing with that negative NAO! Will be interesting to see whether this is a sign of things to come for the upcoming winter.

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