Tells of the season so far that even this week. it's only Tuesday that looks all that poor down here in far-S. England with remaining days ranging from 'meh' to 'not bad'; Wednesday looks dry with good sunny spells and temps near or a little above average, Thursday similarly warm with a few scattered showers albeit potentially on the heavy side, Friday dry again but perhaps a fair bit of cloud so temps no better than average, the weekend warm but with a chance of some spells of rain or drizzle later on Sunday.

That being as per latest model consensus so it could well change a bit. Weekend's particularly uncertain with GFS allowing more ridge influence on Saturday than the other models.

 

Really though, I'm not that fussed given the signals for next week. By a week from today, the large-scale pattern is shaping up nicely on the evening runs;

 

Note the deep trough(s) in the vicinity of Canada/Greenland. These look to become the dominant cyclonic features in the N. Hemisphere, with the trough NE of the UK weakening in favour of ridges from the Azores (reaching there via the UK).

  

This is a classic response to a combination of AAM (atmospheric angular momentum) having climbed a bit in recent days and the movement of some cold Arctic air into Canada which spawns those deep troughs. It's a good thing AAM has risen because we'd otherwise be at the mercy of an unusually strong upper westerly flow aimed W-E or even more NW-SE across us. That's what the models were toying with before the AAM rise fed through (this, as usual, being underestimated or in the case of GFS completely overlooked until relatively short range).

Longer-term, GFS does what it always seems to do and drops AAM back down, resulting in the ridge pulling back west (dramatically so on this particular run). Theoretically, this should not actually transpire; AAM should drop quite a bit less as the atmospheric state is not conditioned to allow otherwise. Not only that but the typical effect of AAM drops become less troublesome for UK weather prospects going into August (well, at least a little). So with any luck we should have a better chance to hold onto well-placed areas of high pressure for widespread fine weather (rather than just in the south) than has been the case so far this summer.

 

So I am feeling optimistic about our prospects - but will be watching like a hawk in case any of those sneaky spanners rear their heads  

Sounds good, James. The model runs this evening look more promising for northern parts going into next week than they have done at any point in the past month.

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Sounds good, James. The model runs this evening look more promising for northern parts going into next week than they have done at any point in the past month.

 

My Borders trip will be coming up a week on Wednesday (19 July 2017) and will go on until the following Monday (24 July 2017). If these model runs verify for that period, I might have picked the perfect time for that after all, in terms of trying to get some decent weather for that which will be well worth a massive celebration if that happens, especially when you consider that we have had such a miserable summer in this part of the world up until now (if that happens, I might well be active over on the moaning thread again but this time, it would be to gloat rather than moan).

 

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Tells of the season so far that even this week. it's only Tuesday that looks all that poor down here in far-S. England with remaining days ranging from 'meh' to 'not bad'; Wednesday looks dry with good sunny spells and temps near or a little above average, Thursday similarly warm with a few scattered showers albeit potentially on the heavy side, Friday dry again but perhaps a fair bit of cloud so temps no better than average, the weekend warm but with a chance of some spells of rain or drizzle later on Sunday.

That being as per latest model consensus so it could well change a bit. Weekend's particularly uncertain with GFS allowing more ridge influence on Saturday than the other models.

 

Really though, I'm not that fussed given the signals for next week. By a week from today, the large-scale pattern is shaping up nicely on the evening runs;

 

Note the deep trough(s) in the vicinity of Canada/Greenland. These look to become the dominant cyclonic features in the N. Hemisphere, with the trough NE of the UK weakening in favour of ridges from the Azores (reaching there via the UK).

  

This is a classic response to a combination of AAM (atmospheric angular momentum) having climbed a bit in recent days and the movement of some cold Arctic air into Canada which spawns those deep troughs. It's a good thing AAM has risen because we'd otherwise be at the mercy of an unusually strong upper westerly flow aimed W-E or even more NW-SE across us. That's what the models were toying with before the AAM rise fed through (this, as usual, being underestimated or in the case of GFS completely overlooked until relatively short range).

Longer-term, GFS does what it always seems to do and drops AAM back down, resulting in the ridge pulling back west (dramatically so on this particular run). Theoretically, this should not actually transpire; AAM should drop quite a bit less as the atmospheric state is not conditioned to allow otherwise. Not only that but the typical effect of AAM drops become less troublesome for UK weather prospects going into August (well, at least a little). So with any luck we should have a better chance to hold onto well-placed areas of high pressure for widespread fine weather (rather than just in the south) than has been the case so far this summer.

 

So I am feeling optimistic about our prospects - but will be watching like a hawk in case any of those sneaky spanners rear their heads  

Great info there James and thanks for the detailed  explanation.

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Humdinger of an 06z run, but for once it's near the top of the ensembles so certainly not nailed on yet.

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Sounds like God has been taking a leek over leek. Haha.

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Oh just look at that:

Textbook. Dreamy. The summer equivalent of a 1050hPa Greenland high in January.

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^That is the 'Holy Grail' for those of us who like hot weather in summer: the Azores High and Scandi High linking up. It's a formidable block which can be very hard to shift.

^That is the 'Holy Grail' for those of us who like hot weather in summer: the Azores High and Scandi High linking up. It's a formidable block which can be very hard to shift.

Indeed, Nick.

Late July & early August 1995 was one very good example of when such a set-up took hold and went on to dominate proceedings for a while. It no doubt helped to produce what is still the warmest August on record AFAIK and what was at the time the second hottest CET month on record, before it was pushed down into third place by July 2006. A fantastic spell which went al long way towards making summer 1995 the best one overall that I can recall for weather in my location.

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A stunning ecm tonight while very warm in England , its France that absolutely boils 2003 esque if not even more extreme.

 If the ecm is correct tonight the Heat in France will be making headlines next week . 40c in Paris?

 

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm1922.html

 

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Oh just look at that:

Textbook. Dreamy. The summer equivalent of a 1050hPa Greenland high in January.

My goodness.

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Blowtorch conditions in France next week if tonight's output is correct. I'd be surprised if southern England doesn't tap into some of that heat, but we'll need to wait a tad longer before being certain.

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Increased confidence for a noteworthy heatwave developing again next week. 850Hpa's now exceeding 15c on the ECM and GFS would no doubt see temperatures reaching the mid 30's in the south with furnace like heat developing over France.

Its on its way 

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Increased confidence for a noteworthy heatwave developing again next week. 850Hpa's now exceeding 15c on the ECM and GFS would no doubt see temperatures reaching the mid 30's in the south with furnace like heat developing over France.

Its on its way 

The July record is eminently breakable.  There for the taking.

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Again a strong signal for high pressure to ridge towards Scandi with high pressure extending all the way down to the Azores. Such a scenario favours a longer warm spell because any source of cool air to the continent is cut off. The warm air building across the channel could then get caught up in the high.

Looks very similar to the early part of August 1997, though still a way to go yet. Fascinating output though.

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It will be interesting to see what the odds are of this upcoming heatwave as seen by the models (especially by the GFS) lasting for long enough for the odd location in southern Scotland to be challenging the 30C mark at some point in in time. What got me thinking about that, is that here in Edinburgh, we had 28C during the very end of the spring, and that tells me that it shouldn't be completely impossible to get at 30C temperature during this summer even though our weather has been so dire during this summer so far.

I know that it is very rare for us to get 30C in this part of the world, but that has happened on the odd occasion in the past and the 28C which we had in May isn't that far short of that. Having said that, I think that it will take quite a massive heatwave to beat the 28C which we had in May, but I don't think that we can rule that out altogether if the models are right about this coming heatwave. Our highest temperature of the summer currently stands at 25C, and that is certainly beatable.

For that happen here, we need to have the right synoptics with the area of high pressure being virtually right on top of us and producing some really good weather, but just far enough to our east or south to cut of those cooling sea breezes and allow some really hot air to be brought up from the south. Whether that ends up happening is another matter but I fear that even if the GFS is right, that area of high pressure might just be a wee bit to the north of us if anything, which puts us at a greater risk of a sea breeze or easterly winds and resulting cooler temperatures here in the east coast, although it would probably still be sunny in the afternoons once any low cloud or haar was burned away, and I imagine that it could then be the west of Scotland which stood the best chance of seeing those really high temperatures which I described earlier.

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It will be interesting to see what the odds are of this upcoming heatwave as seen by the models (especially by the GFS) lasting for long enough for the odd location in southern Scotland to be challenging the 30C mark at some point in in time. What got me thinking about that, is that here in Edinburgh, we had 28C during the very end of the spring, and that tells me that it shouldn't be completely impossible to get at 30C temperature during this summer even though our weather has been so dire during this summer so far.

I know that it is very rare for us to get 30C in this part of the world, but that has happened on the odd occasion in the past and the 28C which we had in May isn't that far short of that. Having said that, I think that it will take quite a massive heatwave to beat the 28C which we had in May, but I don't think that we can rule that out altogether if the models are right about this coming heatwave. Our highest temperature of the summer currently stands at 25C, and that is certainly beatable.

For that happen here, we need to have the right synoptics with the area of high pressure being virtually right on top of us and producing some really good weather, but just far enough to our east or south to cut of those cooling sea breezes and allow some really hot air to be brought up from the south. Whether that ends up happening is another matter but I fear that even if the GFS is right, that area of high pressure might just be a wee bit to the north of us if anything, which puts us at a greater risk of a sea breeze or easterly winds and resulting cooler temperatures here in the east coast, although it would probably still be sunny in the afternoons once any low cloud or haar was burned away, and I imagine that it could then be the west of Scotland which stood the best chance of seeing those really high temperatures which I described earlier.

30C was reached somewhere in Scotland in 2003 (the August heatwave) and in 1995, and I'm pretty sure it happened in at least one of the good summers we had in the 80's. It quite possibly happened in 1976 as well given the prolonged summer heat that year.

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Again a strong signal for high pressure to ridge towards Scandi with high pressure extending all the way down to the Azores. Such a scenario favours a longer warm spell because any source of cool air to the continent is cut off. The warm air building across the channel could then get caught up in the high.

Looks very similar to the early part of August 1997, though still a way to go yet. Fascinating output though.

Looks more like early August 1995 to me. I'll need to delve back into the WZ archive charts for that time to be sure, but from what I remember from looking at them in the past, the set-up back then (Azores High connecting with one over Scandi) is very similar to what is being suggested for next week.

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30C was reached somewhere in Scotland in 2003 (the August heatwave) and in 1995, and I'm pretty sure it happened in at least one of the good summers we had in the 80's. It quite possibly happened in 1976 as well given the prolonged summer heat that year.

According to Wikipedia, the highest recorded temperature in Edinburgh was 31.4C at what was then called Turnhouse Airport (nowadays, that is just Edinburgh Airport) on Monday 4 August 1975. My local Met Office weather station is at the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and there, we came very close to recording 30C in 2009 when a temperature of 29.9C was recorded on Thursday 2 July 2009, and that wasn't a particularly great summer (as you may well guess from the fact that we were generally in a colder phase than where we are just now, with those two really cold winters which then followed in 2009 and 2010).

Scotland's highest ever temperature was 32.9C at Greycrook in the Scottish Borders on Saturday 9 August 2003. We can see that two of those figures are well above the 30C. I don't actually expect any of those records to be beaten or even challenged, but it will be interesting to see how close we get to that with this upcoming heatwave if it happens.

 

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Charts are taking on a very 1976 extended dry look now. Today's welcome rainfall may be the last we see for a considerable period. What a fantastic summer we are having down here.

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Charts are taking on a very 1976 extended dry look now. Today's welcome rainfall may be the last we see for a considerable period. What a fantastic summer we are having down here.

 

whats even better is you were constantly writing it off several weeks back. Your track record remains consistent through winter and summer at least  

Astonishing output really given the incredible weather we've already had this summer. I cannot get enough of this. 

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