A persistent blocking high continues to shield the UK from wet weather which has been predominantly held down over Spain, Portugal and France. So the dry pattern continues for the majority, particularly so for parts of Scotland where only increased clouds and a wind shift will be the noticeable change through the weekend and first half of next week.

That’s means the vast majority will see no rain through at least the first 10 days of May. This comes on the heels of one of Scotland’s driest April’s and Edinburgh’s driest in 75 years.

The dry ENE air flow is making for glorious cloud free skies.

As your well aware, wind blowing off a cold 8-9C North Sea is making it quite chilly up and down the east coast but in the sunny west with the aid of shelter and some downslope, it’s been more like summer.

The good news for gardeners however is that high pressure does appear to weaken mid next week and low pressure should bring the first rains Thu-Fri on into next weekend.

The latest run of the GFS indicates EARLY FRIDAY as the first shot at rain for southern/central Scotland.

5-day means

CFSv2 next 7 days!

This is certainly no heat wave pattern but continued drying out of the soils could be sowing the seeds to drought and heat wave conditions in early/mid summer as dry ground encourages high pressure and heat. That’s providing there’s no sudden change later in May which I don’t see happening. Rain yes, but soaking rain? I don’t see it.