With low pressure remaining trapped beneath a strong Iceland to Scandinavia blocking high, it was another very stormy day across the heart of Europe yesterday.

Yip, that equates to a total of over 1.5 MILLION strikes over the past week.

However, give or take some shower and thunderstorm activity, high pressure centred north of the UK has bathed much of western and northern Ireland and Scotland over the past week but around the periphery of this high, NE winds blowing over a still cool North Sea has plagued much of England and Wales in cloud, cold onshore winds and at times heavy, thundery rains. In fact an occluded front did indeed enhanced thicker cloud and thundery showers across northern Scotland yesterday but this feature is now clearing out into the Atlantic. Elsewhere across western Scotland it was another pleasantly warm day and warmest anywhere in the UK albeit hazier.

FEATURED IMAGE CREDIT: Credit: Jonathan Healey ‏@SocialHistoryOx

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Heights rebuild along with warmth in it’s wake and this southward building high looks to hold through much of next week. Finally allowing England, Wales and France to catch some rays and warmth that you’d typically expect here by now.

The reason for the change is all thanks to a much more south to north ridge axis developing in response to low pressure gaining ground west of Ireland. This will pump a developing ridge north out of Morocco and eventually the ridges north and south of the UK hook up as seen in the below GFS 500mb snapshots. Expect some real heat to lift up through Spain and Portugal when those southerlies get going next week.

Lately the warmth and sunshine has been focused over NI and Scotland with a west to east ridge core positioned between Iceland and Norway. With the centre closer to Iceland, NE winds crossing the cool North Sea drew on cool, moist being lifted as it crossed the North Sea hence the persistent cloud and breeze holding temperatures between 9-14C.

No posts tomorrow. Full update again Monday!

Have a great weekend.

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