Weather updates from site founder Brian Gaze that keep you in the know.
Posted 27th July, 15:48
July has been a very mixed month so far with unsettled periods and a lack of real heat. The provisional Central England Temperature (CET) to the 26th is 15.7C which is 0.3C below the 30 year average. In fact 30C hasn't yet been recorded in the UK.
In the next couple of days the UK will be sitting under quite a cool air mass but things will be starting to change. An area of high pressure builds eastwards across the UK and into the continent by Thursday. Low pressure will be approaching from the west but the combination of the two leads to much warmer air being pulled northwards from southern Europe.
The GFS 06z chart below for 15:00GMT on Friday 31st July illustrates nicely. Low pressure is slow moving to the south of Iceland and very warm upper level air - shown by orange shading - is covering the UK.
The 15C 850hPa line is straddles central Britain and to the south of London values are approaching an incredible 20C. At this time of the year temperatures of 30C should be easily be reached at the surface and there is the potential to go a few degrees higher if everything falls into place. For example, no storms and long sunny periods with little or no cloud.
The raw data from the GFS shows temperatures of 30C (86F) locally in the south east. It generally underestimates maximum temperatures by 2C to 3C, Therefore, if it's correct about the air mass and synoptic set-up I'd say 33C isn't entirely out of the question and we could be challenging the hottest day of the year so far which was in June.
If you don't like hot weather it looks like things will turn cooler quite quickly this weekend. In the longer term the picture appears to be quite a changeable and average one. Nonetheless, there is a tendency for these short bursts of heat to appear in the computer model predictions at fairly short range. So don't rule out another blast or two in the next few weeks.
Temperatures this July have been below average in much of the country. It looks as though the last two days of the month will be the hottest. There's still some uncertainty about the details for later this week but 30C (86F) could be exceeded for this first time this July on the last day of the month.
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