New month, new weather?

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Summary temps confirm yesterday's trend of a general movement of warm air N-wards into western Europe including SE England; perhaps more of a bulge into Scandinavia in week 2 rather than yesterday's broad front, with the Atlantic and W Russia trailing. Fairly dry across Europe this week (v dry patches in Baltic, Biscay and Tyrrhenian); next week a lot wetter than shown yesterday with quantities of rain in France, Britain and Scandinavia, dry weather retreating to the Med.

Jet - not much action near UK until Mon 9th when a W-ly streak sets up across England, distorting into a loop around UK to the south by Sun 15th, fading by Wed 18th

GFS Op - weak ridge of HP aligned N-S over UK drifting E-wards but replaced by strong development of Azores High (1030mb for almost all UK Sun 8th) pushed aside by LP (980mb Faeroes Wed 11th, 980mb Hebrides Fri 13th, 990mb NI Mon 16th) with winds from W or SW before a rather uncertain pressure rise Wed 18th

FAX - less convinced about HP this week; weaker development and trailing fronts expected

GEFS - mean temps rising to a little above norm for next two weeks (but op & control cooler around Thu 12th, Scotland has a dip Sat 8th) and  sporadic rain at first, more continuous from 11th, heavier in NW

ECM (yesterday's 12z) - like GFS until Tue 10th when deep LP 975mb off N Ireland appears, running NE-wards. A contrast from yesterday when ECM was being optimistic about HP hanging on

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Pollution persisting for 2 days now so no change and no weather at all.  I see the graphs for Nuneaton showing 3-5C 850's which represent May average temps but still no signs of low to mid 20's spells that normally should come in a Spring package.  My fear is the heavy chain addicted cloud cover that started terrorize this country since last year May onward strike again and keeping maximum temps several degrees lower despite false 850's uppers.  Forecast say 17C today but it happened few days ago they went for 16-17C but reality was 9-10C under pollution skies.  

WX summary temps for week 1 show an advance of warmer weather from the S but still quite cold over Iceland and Scandinavia; in week 2 a bulge of warm air covers W Europe but the UK is on the edge of this - there could be quite a contrast between a hot SE and a cool NW. The dry area Spain - England - Baltic is still there week 1, with some rain on either side. In week 2 the forecast has changed again with heavy rain now S of Iceland and E of Finland and streaks distributed elsewhere, unfortunately one is across NI/S Scotland.

Jet - not much action until Mon 9th when a flow appears across Scotland, moving S over the next few days and dissipating.

GFS Op - pressure generally high to Mon 9th with troughs just brushing the N of Scotland. Then a period with LP S of Iceland contending with HP over the continent with SW-lies between; LP winning around Thu 12th, HP winning around Mon 16th

FAX has a more definite HP over Scotland Sat 7th with trailing fronts further S

GEFS - temps  a little above norm for most of the forecast period, but in the S wider then usual variation in ens members after Mon 9th, with a base including op & control close to norm and a selection of much warmer members. In the N more evenly distributed about the norm. Rain quite frequent in small amounts, drier around the 9th, quite a lot wetter in the NW after this.

ECM - resembles GFS

 

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Surprised people not making more of the early drought and already heathland fires. We are looking at a month of zero rainfall soon here and looks like it could easily go to six weeks before we even get to summer temperatures! Going to be a disaster for S.E and Anglian agriculture.

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Great further north, though!

Mostly dry and mild, with occasional spells of rain.

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The BBC Weather For The Week Ahead in their longer range outlook suggested unsettled weather next week with wind and rain.

Uh-oh. Just like my gut has been telling me. Once that starts it might not stop. For weeks and weeks...

WX summary temps much less cheerful than shown yesterday (esp last evening). Week 1 shows axis of cold air from Finland down to Turkey, Britain with a modest improvement from the SW; in week 2 that improvement sticks while the rest of Europe from France to Romania catches up (but yesterday the warmth was shown as far N as Sweden). In week 1 the driest area is from Biscay to Baltic with rain either side, esp W Scotland; in week 2 a shift from yesterday with the driest from Biscay to the Norwegian Sea, and the rain mostly across Europe with a splash for SE England

JET - streak across Scotland Wed 11th fading in a couple of days, otherwise not much action.

GFS Op - Pressure high across UK to Sun 8th 1030mb generally; LP passing S of iceland then brings in W-lies until HP resumes from SW 1030mb Sun 15th W Scotland. This drifts N-wards and broadens but with (thundery?) LP from S 1015mb Thu 19th Cornwall

GEFS - mean temp rising to comfortably above norm and staying there for a fortnight though with much disagreement between ens members after Wed 11th. Small amounts of rain on and off, driest around 11th in the S, heavier and more continuous in NW

ECM (mostly yesterday's 12z) similar to GFS though current trough near N Scotland hangs on a day or two longer before pressure also rises for the weekend.

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Although the WX charts don't look as 'good' today, from what I understand these are based on the GFS Op which is a cool outlier. The general GEFS trend is dominated by high pressure to the south of the UK leading to largely warm and dry conditions across the UK for the next couple of weeks. 
The one caveat in that is the danger of embedded fronts similar to what we are getting this week. These seem to be a phenomenon of recent summers that affect the UK and North West Europe far more than other parts of Europe. You might argue that these will be a blessing if they occur, considering the dry year we've had so far 

 

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Of course after my drought post we had a trace of rain this morning with perhaps another bit of drizzle later. Barely wet the pavement. 78 mm so far for the year to date! 

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No blessing at all as those embedded or weak fronts as they said inside HP zone like this last 4 days, which is definitely HP due to no winds, very slow rain unlike zonal LP move off fast follow by sunshine, are very lethal and extremely aggressive pattern with rain and constant cloud cover, very hard to shift for weeks to wipe out the summer season.  Reading about up coming warmer weather hope it come with full sunshine and low 20's temps that had been largely absent this Spring so far and very late. 

This would never happen in Canada or Cyprus. In the UK we can no longer accept High pressure as giving fine weather as poisonous weather fronts in polluted airmasses stagnate the atmosphere. We should be getting 25-29c soon but we will struggle due to the illegal clouds that refuse to break. 

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You're on course to have well under 10 inches of rain this year - what with those totals. That's only just over 3 inches.

I believe the lowest annual rainfall figure in this country was under 10 inches and that was recorded in Essex.

 

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  I believe it was margate in Kent just over 9 inches in 1921

According to Trevor Harley's excellent website:
"1921 was the driest year on record: only 236 mm fell at Margate (Cliftonville). This figure is probably unreliable; a leak was later found in the rain gauge."

So probably over 10 inches as Ramsgate recorded 273 mm.

Some crazy heat in the ECM ENS. 

 

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More warmth in the models this morning. The really hot stuff isn’t until more than a week from now but we should be well on course for some days in the early-mid 20s now. Nice.

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WX summary charts keep the bulge of cool weather from Finland down to Ukraine in place for the next two weeks, but there is much more northward movement of warmth on either side especially in week 2 - England warm, S France really hot. A dry area N Spain to Denmark, week 1, some rain N Scotland to Norway and over the Alps and Balkans to Russia; in week 2 a larger v dry area covering all W Europe including  most of UK, rain Pyrenees - Alps - Balkans - Russia and round to N Norway.

GFS Op - HP for Britain this weekend (Sun 1030mb NE England) giving way to W-lies as LP 990 mb passes Orkneys Tue 10th (little effect on S England), then HP resurgent 1030mb Wales Sun 15th drifting a little S-wards by the end of that week.

GEFS - In the S, mean temps rising to warm (6C above norm around Tue 17th) though Op stays only just above norm; small amount of rain Sat 7th and then nothing until around Tue 17th, not in all ens members even then. In the NW, temps don't start to rise above norm until about Sat 14th, then also become definitely warm, but rain in small amounts can be expected at any time.

ECM - synoptics similar to GFS butthe Orkney LP is less deep and a bit further N

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Is it me or are the models not looking quite so hot now with any significant heat perhaps being pushed back to next weekend or later?

Certainly GFS looks much more Atlantic influenced with more of a Westerly, whereas ECM still looks hot potentially in the South.

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What sorts of maxes are those implying.

 

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GFS does appear to be showing the North Atlantic depression, about a week from now, getting a lot closer to the UK than it did previously. This would of course result in cooler and unsettled weather for much of the UK if it materialised. After this things appear to settle back down again but that's a long way off. 

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No models showing so hot weather only low 20's to mid 20's so that not hot just warm and we in southern blocking so better set-up for us on the warm side and lot of HP chances after quick LP move off.  That was the features in the past set-up that bring variety of weather from unsettled with average temps or a tad below to heatwaves easily obtained.  Thankfully no killer northern blocking at the moment.  Local ensemles for Nuneaton snow warm days to average days so that around 18-23C which is good for May compare to 8-12C last year May.

If they come off it would go to low 30's as the record is 33C but if that happen we deserved it after poor year last year.  Also a hot spell in May really good help for the summer months, we had none last year May which give us cold wet summer. Most going for low to mid 20's at best so that way much better and double the temps amount from last year May.

Looking wet for the north next week, especially from Wednesday.
Meanwhile the south stays pleasantly warm and dry, with plenty of sunshine and light winds. UV levels on the rise as a transient ridge crosses us.