An unusually strong upper ridge has been dominated across Europe for much of the 2015 summer and in the last 5 days, the latest heat burst has been shifting north from France through Germany and now all the way into the Baltic countries. This past weekend for many across the Southern UK and a large swath of Europe was warm to hot but it’s a dull and damp open to the new working week for many across the UK all thanks to a trough overhead. This dip in the jet and cold pool aloft has been helping amplify the pattern and forcing the north and it’s hot air ever further northward.

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At the end of last week, temperatures approached all-time values in several German cities and through the weekend, it was more eastern states which approached the 40C while mid-30s we’re achieved in further north locales. The mid 30s (mid 90s) was reached in Lithuania, 33C (92F) in Latvia while it topped 39C (103F) over the Czech Rep.

According to Tyler B Roys of AccuWeather, Prague set 2 daily records over the last 2 days 36.0C (96.8F) on Fri & 36.3C (97.3F) on Sat. Previous records 35.1 & 35.8 respectively. Warszawa (#Warsaw) broke the August Max Record Temp of 36.4C (97.5F) set back in 1994 Saturday with a max of 36.6C (97.9F).

Wroclaw, Poland reached 37.8C (100F) yesterday. The average is a mere 22.8C (73F).

Temps we’re less cool here across the Northern UK yesterday compared to of late. It finally managed to reach 21C along the Moray Coast but unsurprisingly the always sunnier Southeast of England was a summer-like 27C Sunday, 28C on Saturday. That 28C was the warmest for the UK since July 4th.

Note the anomaly chart was around average over the UK, first time in a while but it was another well above average over central and eastern Europe.

For Ireland and the UK, it remains positively below normal for the first 10 days of August while this may be one of the warmest on record further east.

Today’s low pressure will progress east away from the UK into the near continent, opening the door to high pressure from the west. This will promote brighter, warmer conditions for many through mid week and for Scotland, possibly to Thursday but a weak front associated with a low near Iceland may increase rain or shower chances Thursday. While conditions have been hot across central Europe, the current UK low looks to turn things stormy and therefore cooler in many central locales where temperatures have been at or near all-time record values.

The most noteworthy feature however will be low pressure to winds up over the Bay of Biscay early this week and drives rich moisture, warmth and humidity northward over France and eventually the UK. Expect conditions to go downhill over France Tuesday into Wednesday where torrential rain and thunderstorms break out widely causing potential flash flooding. This system will push into northern France, eventually crossing the channel later Wednesday into Thursday bringing potentially stormy conditions to the UK with an increase in humidity.

Current model runs suggest the Icelandic low remains the lesser of features and this low pushes all the way up into Scotland by Thursday bringing showers, longer spells of rain, gusty wind and embedded thunderstorms. Wrap around moisture will also affect Ireland and Northern Ireland but until then, make the most of this drier spell.

Latest GFS shows the setup through this week.

With strong upper feature, upward motion looks to be impressive with this system with plenty of warm, moist fuel being drawn from a warm Med Sea.

Up to 4 inches of rain expected along the north coast of France over the next 5 days.

As we look further out, according to the GFS operational, this pattern is about to get even more amplified. The trough digs day 5-10 over the West which keeps a strong ridge and warmer than normal pattern going for east and northeast Europe but day 5-10, it looks like an even hotter spell coming to areas that have largely missed out this summer, Scandinavia and the Baltic states. Potentially record heat is on offer.

See today’s video for the latest discussion.

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