A few folks have came up to me in recent times and said how terrible this summer’s been. I would disagree with that for the simple fact that I remember washout June’s and July’s. This year is no washout. Those were the terrible ones. At least we’re getting the sun, warmth (at times) and then the cloud and rain too but by no means is this a terrible summer. Sure, it’s very mixed and up and down but you only have to go back to 2012 and the previous 6 summers to find far worse.

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Remember we went through a spell between 2007-2012 where we barely had a summer. Abnormally warm North Atlantic waters during that period supported well above normal rainfall. While it’s wet this summer, the colder North Atlantic is likely supressing the amount of summer rain this year as I believe a warm North Atlantic like a few years ago, combined with this strong El Nino may have brought us heavy, perhaps record rainfall. Instead, we’re getting the wild, even extreme flips between warm and cool. Quite interesting to be honest.

As we progress through July it looks like we’re turning cooler and wetter AS FORECAST but where the ground is driest, it’s going to be brightest and warmest. For Northern Ireland, Scotland and northern England I think the really warm weather is perhaps behind us as soils dampen further and atmospheric feedback kicks in. I expect us to turn wetter from now on and with waters warmed around the UK, we may find a pretty wet August and autumn. The heat is likely to linger for Southern England, Wales into France and Spain long into the autumn whereas rain and unusual cool shots with snow may be an increasing factor September onwards across the Northern UK.

As for the upcoming 10-15 day period. Look for a series of fronts to sweep in off the Atlantic. A lot of cloud cover means supressed temperatures across N Ireland and Scotland but there will be more spells of sun and appreciable warmth for much of England and Wales. Crossing the North Sea and it’s looking increasingly cooler and wetter into the Netherlands, Denmark and Scandinavia and the warmth will be forced across the Southern half of Europe. Denmark may well be sheltered by Scotland from the wettest of the weather but here too it’s cooler and more changeable.

Here’s the latest GFS surface maps for the upcoming 7 days. The models are hinting at a decent cool shot towards next weekend. See the video for more on this.

The ECMWF has a rather chilly scenario by day 10 with unusually low thicknesses over Scotland, snow for the mountains? Still a loooong way off!

ECMWF 10-day 500mb height anomalies show this…

Temperature anomalies look like this…

Be sure to check out this morning’s video for more!

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