Northern blocking with no Greenland high: it’s a pattern I don’t remember seeing in at least a decade. Any precedent examples welcome.

Just looked at 2006 and 2003. Both, ultimately, westerly based heatwaves ie the heat came from a Euro high with more unsettled weather in the North and West. That’s why France and Germany got record breaking heat but also why the U.K. had a NW/SE split. 1989 and 1994, in a slightly more anticyclonic manner, were the same.

Then looked at the 1995 archives. Very similar, particularly end of July / early Aug. The continent had an OK summer - so so. It was northern blocking with no Greenland high. We had a cold but dry early June. It was a hot summer with non-standard heatwave Synoptics.

1976 is a halfway house between the 1995 and 2003/6 models.

The current outlook reminds me a little of that of both early June 2007 & June 2009, the latter of which I recorded my personal highest temperature (30c) on either the 1st or 2nd. It is slightly interesting that both of these summers ended up much wetter than average overall. 

Early June 2007, does not look too dissimilar to what the models are showing tonight:

What's weird though is that northern blocking is something which we would normally be looking for during the winter (rather than at this time of year) in order to deliver a cold winter with hopefully, a lot of snow. During the summer though, this isn't normally something which you would want to to be seeing due to the tendency for low pressure systems to be sitting underneath that and often right on top of the UK as a result, therefore resulting in a miserable summer with a lot of rain.

However, the summer of 2014 provided a good example of how it is possible to have northern blocking at this time of year and get away with it. What happened then (particularly during July of that year as far as I can remember) was that the blocking high sat just to the north of us and fed in an easterly wind which caused low cloud to spread in during the nights from the east coast and give a fairly dull start to each day.

Once the Sun got to work during the day though, it ended up being quite hot away from the east coast (where it was still a lot cooler due to that wind coming straight in off the North Sea). It was around that time when I visited my parents in the Scottish Borders, where the temperature reached around 25°C at that time, but it can remember it being even hotter further to the west with the temperatures reaching around 29°C in sheltered parts of the west coast of Scotland.

From what I am seeing from the latest outlook, the setup which we are about to see could be shades of what happened back then once again.

Accuweather seem to think so SC

Warm, dry summer expected from United Kingdom to Belgium, Netherlands

Prolonged periods of warm and dry weather will be the theme of the summer across the British Isles, northwestern France, Belgium and Netherlands. The overall warm pattern will likely result in one of the warmest summers of the past decade. “Going back to 2010, this summer will rank as one of the top three warmest across United Kingdom as a whole," Roys said. The prolonged warm and dry weather will increase the risk for drought conditions which could impact agriculture.

That rather burst my bubble. Yes, they are quite similar...

Didn't mean to burst bubbles  and if it is any comfort, the latest EC45 charts show lower than average heights up towards Greenland and that general area right up towards the end of the run. 

Not sure if this link will work nice uk summer forecast map 

https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a-2/weather-forecast/328328

Arome well worth a look today. 

https://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/arome.aspx?run=na&charthour=10&chartname=preciprate&chartregion=uk-region&charttag=Precip%20rate

Looks like you could get some Chiltern action. Hoping it’ll hold off in London.

Its amusing how quiet this forum is in spring and summer. Just as I’m emerging from my weather hibernation and getting interested again everyone else is going to sleep.

Indeed, LP from France nudging up and this reflected in forecast of increased shower activity for the south. Yesterday, for Chichester, showers were only forecast for Wed pm; today there's 50% or so chance of showers from today through Thursday.

And GFS, a week further out, now favours LP from the south when it had been forecasting a cold-ish LP coming in from the NW. At least it will be warm!

Won't be long before it starts to turn hot.

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem2161.html

Sunny spells and dry so far today. The lower resolution DWD ICON has been much better today than Arome / Arpege and the excitable HIRLAM.

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn15011.gif 

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn17411.gif 

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn19811.gif 

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn22211.gif 

17c 850s aswell Scorchio!  30c +

If we get that in May then I’d put money on a cool washout summer. The false hope: like 1 July 2015.

Serious uk may heat from 12z gfs 564 a very long way north for several days big uppers,

May 29 1944 maximum 32.8 would be in grave danger if that run came off