The first half of June 2024 witnessed a very marked NW to SE contrast across the continent.
The continuation of a highly blocked hemispheric wave 7 pattern led to a frequent southward push of arctic air initially over the UK and Ireland but with time through France, Spain and Portugal. Meanwhile unusually hot air (for time of year) lifted north out of Libya and Egypt bringing record or near record heat to Greece, Turkey up through Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine into Russia.
3-day temp anomaly
10-13th
Credit: Weatherbell
7-day temp anomaly
7-13th June
Credit: Weatherbell
10-day temp anomaly
3-13th
Credit: Weatherbell
The opening couple of days actually started above average for the UK/Ireland before Atlantic ridging retreated and opened the door to polar-maritime air.
Note the below contrasts between 4-12th 2024 vs the same stretch in 2023 when a heat wave was building and produced not only the UK’s earliest 30C high since 2012 but also saw a notorious UK summer record fall…
June 12th was always well known on the British meteorological summer calendar for being the ONLY day to have not observed 30C anywhere, that record fell in 2023.
Loch Glascarnoch maximum temperatures between 4-12th June 2024 vs 4-12th June 2023.
2024 2023
4th 9.9C 18.3C
5th 10.0C 17.3C
6th 11.3C 18.5C
7th 11.3C 18.8C
8th 9.7C 18.3C
9th 10.4C 19.9C
10th 9.2C 25.9C
11th 8.9C 21.7C
12th 10.9C 23.0C
Note the 9 consecutive days with a maximum no higher than 11.3C with 4 days failing to reach 10C
My own station went through the same 9 days without exceeding 14.6C. Note the difference particularly during the last few days of that same 9 day stretch last year.
2024 2023
4th 12.8C 15.8C
5th 12.2C 14.5C
6th 14.6C 16.0C
7th 13.5C 16.9C
8th 12.1C 15.8C
9th 14.4C 19.3C
10th 11.8C 24.8C
11th 12.4C 24.6C
12th 14.4C 24.9C
The final week to 10 days (through to 27th) saw the much anticipated and expected warm-up!
Credit: Weatherbell
Here was the 500mb geopotential anomaly for June through the 27th.
Credit: Weatherbell
Despite the warmer final 10 days, the cool anomaly above clings on and the month is likely to be slightly below average but firmly warmer than average over the east continent.
A relatively deep Atlantic low moved through the 27th wipes out the short lived spell of summer with cloud, outbreaks of rain and blustery showers.
Credit: Meteoceil
It’s been an interesting month from a meteorological point of view with stark contrasts. Persistent cool days and nights between 3-20th then quite the flip to two consecutive days topping 30C, three exceeding 28C then on the 4th day a drop back to 25.5C marking the end of the ‘heatwave’ threshold in SE England.
24th: 28.3C Wisley, Surrey
25th: 30.0C Churtsey, Surrey
26th: 30.5C Wisley, Surrey
27th: 25.5C Heathrow
For Scotland, Northern Ireland and Rep of Ireland it was a one or two (at best) day affair. 27.3C and 25.8C in Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively with even Wales too only getting a glimmer of the heat too with two consecutive days topping 27C (27.8C max). Phoenix Park, Dublin saw Ireland’s highest of the month and year so far with 26.7C.
In terms of the CET, the first half of June was the coolest since 1995 although failed to fail below the 5th percentile. On the other hand the brief ‘heatwave’ between 24-27th reached the 95th percentile.
Credit: Met Office
Scoring My June Outlook
What was said…
Europe June 2024 Outlook
Average to below average temperature & below average rainfall for UK… Warmer, drier Iberia, France but wetter central
Reality…
MET OFFICE: Dry, cool and sunny June for the UK
June 2024 was a dry, cool and sunny month compared to the UK’s long-term average, according to provisional Met Office figures.
June was a month of contrasts for many, with a cool first half of the month offset by warmth later in the month, with rainfall also in relatively short supply, especially in the south.
A drier than average month
June was drier than average, with the UK recording 29% less rainfall than the long-term meteorological average. It saw 55.1mm recorded across the month.
Wales and the south of England received much lower-than-average rainfall amounts. Wales recorded 48.1mm which is 48% less than average. The south of England recorded 24.8mm which is 58% less than the average.
Northern Scotland recorded above average amounts. It saw 122.0mm of rainfall, 32% more than its average for June.
Credit: Met Office
The average mean temperature for June was 12.9°C. This is 0.4°C below the long-term meteorological average.
Credit: Met Office
Met Office Extremes for June 2024
Highest Maximum 30.5°C on 26th at Wisley (Surrey, 38mAMSL)
Lowest Maximum 8.6°C on 10th at Dalwhinnie No 2 (Inverness-shire, 351mAMSL)
Highest Minimum 18.2°C on 25th at Carlton-in-cleveland (Cleveland, 103mAMSL)
Lowest Minimum -1.6°C on 13th at Kinbrace, Hatchery (Sutherland, 103mAMSL)
Lowest Grass
Minimum -4.2°C on 6th at Aboyne No 2 (Aberdeenshire, 140mAMSL)
Most Rainfall 51.2mm on 13th at Mickleden, Middlefell Farm (Cumbria, 99mAMSL)
Most Sunshine 16.1hr on 24th at Dyce (Aberdeenshire, 65mAMSL)
Highest Gust 55Kt 63mph on 15th at Wight: Needles Old Battery (Isle Of Wight, 80mAMSL)
Highest Gust
(mountain*) 77Kt 89mph on 4th at Cairngorm Summit (Inverness-shire, 1237mAMSL)
My Score: 8.5 out of 10
My Weather Station Stats for June 2024
MAX TEMP: 24.0C MIN TEMP: 1.2C WETTEST DAY: 16.79 mm PEAK GUST: 42.1 kph WET DAYS: 13 DRY DAYS: 17 MAX PRESS: 1029 mb MIN PRESS: 990 mb TOTAL RAIN: 55.96 mm AVG Temp: 12.2C
The month will likely have been slightly drier than average for both UK and Ireland. We await Met office and Met Eireann stats! As for Europe, wetter for much of the western and central Europe, drier south and east. The below drought monitor and soil moisture content shows this well.
European drought monitor as of late May
Credit: EU Science Hub
End of June soil moistute anomaly
Credit: Hydrology Next
@HydrologyNext
The below charts show the type of upper air pattern we’ve seen during June. Note the positive over the central N Atlantic with trough linking Canada and Europe.
500mb geopotential anomaly 1-25th June 2024
Via Richard Traut
The stormy pattern continued from May through June in central Europe while ridging drove heat and worsening drought from southern Italy through Greece, Turkey northwards.
When looking at above upper anomalies, note somewhat of a reflection on SST’s below.
Credit: Tropical Tidbits
Any Sign of Proper Summer Sun & Warmth in July?
There’s no coincidence in the positive over the N Atlantic and trough extending from Greenland to UK and the warm vs cool SST’s. Lack of ‘weather’ under HP allows more sunlight and less wind which allows surface waters to warm while persistent WNW winds blowing around and down the east side of the high drove upwelling and cooling of SST’s from Iceland to Canaries.
Given this SST profile and given what the atmosphere has produced over the past 4 weeks, there is reason to believe the below my MEAN ridge/jet stream idea for July.
Check both ECMWF and GFS extended for the upcoming 30 days.
Credit: Weatherbell
Credit: Weatherbell
Notice how similar both models and my drawing is (drawn before seeing these charts BTW!) and also extremely similar to the 500mb geopotential anomaly for June through the 25th.
Obviously this is a 30-day mean and so there will be flexing back and forth BUT the take home for me is cool/wet looks more likely than warm through at least the first half of July with heat and worsening drought south and east of the continent.
The above suggests we could go through the entire first half of meteorological summer 2024 with a mere ‘few days’ of warm to hot and for some, only a couple of days!!
I suspect the Atlantic SST profile could work along with the wet west/dry east soils to reinforce the west trough/east ridge upper setup through much of July.
We will also need to watch potential tropical activity, especially if systems turn north.
I suspect there will be heat surges as heat builds over the Mediterranean which will attempt to push north.
Here’s rainfall off GFS extended.
Credit: Weatherbell
Not the kind of temp anomaly chart you wish to see if your in search of a hot July!
Credit: Weatherbell
Prevailing WNW flow would mean wetter Scotland, Scandi, drier England, W Low Countries and especially drier southeast Europe.
Finally here’s a quite glance at the CFSv2 weeklies for upper setup. Note the flat west flow becoming increasingly troughy with WNW flow as the high positions over the central NA very similar to what we’ve seen in June.
Credit: TropicalTidbits
Credit: TropicalTidbits
Credit: TropicalTidbits
Credit: TropicalTidbits
With the likely ‘building of heat’ over Iberia and or Med Basin, I would expect an increased chance of seeing some northward migration, albeit brief up into the UK and Ireland during the 2nd half of July. Like June, I see a cool first half, warmer second half…
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