Well according to my Collins weather guide, June is usually a drier month on average than either July or August (for London) so no basis in fact for the European Monsoon in these parts.

Down here May is the driest followed by July, and June sits in third place in front of August.

For London there is less of a margin between months but July is the driest of the 3 summer months by 0.6mm and August the wettest, with the February being the yearly driest month. 

http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/temp4 showing warm especially this week and dry but with cool central Europe we are going to have to rely on S flow to keep this spell going - any shift to an easterly could change the outlook.

 GFS: Current HP moving slowly over to Norway and a weak E-ly replaces the very warm S-ly so the above is a possibility. By fri 5th LP has developed over Iberia (cf yesterday's models) and HP has moved from the Atlantic to NW Scotland and stays there more or less strongly to Fri 12th with N/NE-lies running down the N Sea. These vary from strong and cold initially (Fri 5th)to blocked and weak on Wed 10th

GEFS: still refusing to admit that temps this week will be above average in the S, though in the W and Scotland there is a bump; also a nationwide bump up in temp around Wed 3rd before a general drop to below seasonal norm on Fri 5th (again!) then a slow recovery over the following week. Irregular rainfall in small amounts from around Wed 3rd.

ECM: matches GFS to Wed 3rd but then rapidly develops an unusual-looking cold and deep LP over N Scotland 985 mb on Fri 5th (again again!), with cold winds for the whole country, not just N Sea coasts. This LP with cold weather sits over Cornwall 990 mb the next day.

All eyes on Friday week

The pattern change still on for the 4th June to more unsettled and cooler.  Likely ECM over doing it somewhat hopefully anyway as it's a shocker

There have been frequent enough signs in recent models of a switch to Northerlies and mid-Atlantic blocking in early June to think that may now be the form horse. Whatever, we continue to see a blocked pattern. Could be cool and dry, like June 1995, or 2007-like if this morning's revolting ECM is a guide. But that is still over a week away. Some warm weather to come.

June monsoon is an interesting one. It is definitely a feature of continental Western Europe, but as people say not of the UK. Contrast much of the South of England where May and June are two of the driest months of the year, with somewhere like Macon or Lyon in central France where the May and June rainfall averages nearly 100mm (much of it in thunderstorms under slow moving slack low pressure) and the two months are the wettest in the year.

2018 was indeed an excellent summer overall, but for me, the poorer August prevented it from replacing 1995 as the best summer I can recall in my lifetime. The best weather two years ago came during the first six weeks of the summer, if one puts the excellent late spring weather that preceded it to the side. The difference in 1995 was that in that summer, the best and longest-lasting excellent weather came later in the summer rather than earlier on as happened in 2018.

The term summer monsoon for northwest Europe is of course a tongue in cheek reference to the pattern change that often occurs in early summer across the UK There is an old weatherlore referenced by HH Lamb in his book 'The English Climate' (1964) which identifies 24th June - St John the Baptists Day.  The weatherlore states 'Before St Johns day we pray for rain - after it we get without praying' So clearly for many years the farming community in particular had noticed the dryness and settled weather associated with the higher pressure/easterlies we often notice in May/June followed by a deterioration in late June - just in time for the high summer period. Otherwise known as the 'return of the westerlies' While 'monsoon' is clearly an overstatement - in comparison to the real thing,  thinking back to the infamously wet summers of the 1952/56/57/58 and 1985/86 and 2007/08/09/12 etc to mention a mere few - you can see where the idea comes from.

To highlight the post above April,May and June 2003 recorded 56 consecutive days without rainfall for here in west Cornwall. That all changed from mid June....

Are you sure it was 2003?

Interesting to see that the Moray Firth is forecast to be warmer than much of mainland Greece on average for the first week. 

2003 was a very good summer

A lovely output for the next 7 days at least, ECM seems a bit far fetched this morning towards the later stages, but I expect it will become a bit cooler/more unsettled.
Anyway can't expect the dry and fine weather to continue all summer, some rain would be welcome for the gardens.

Agreed. The ECM 00z op is rather extreme in its interpretation of the prospect of cooler and more unsettled conditions, but it does look likely in a more watered-down way. Like you say, any rain will be welcome for the gardens. It is all looking rather brown and dusty here.

I don't have any reservations about the summer weather at the moment.

A quick look at some random historical records for Cornwall suggests July 2003 was a very wet month with relatively low sunshine hours followed by a big improvement in August and September.

GFS - HP over UK moves to Norway by Sun 31st and at first links to a new HP over the Atlantic with light E-lies, but the Norwegian HP then collapses allowing strong N-lies esp Fri 5th and Tue 9th, the latter developing into depression over UK. By Sat 13th the HP is restored along with more summery weather for UK

GEFS - matches this, temps above seasonal norm to Thu 4th, then colder but recovering by Thu 11th. Bits and pieces of rain around from the 4th, dry until then. Similar for all the UK.

ECM - similar to GFS, but N-lies placed a little further away over the N Sea. Yesterday's odd-looking LP with direct hit on Scotland has gone

I think this year is closely resembling 2019 so far in my neck of the woods. Very dry and warm with beginning of month temperature dips.  

For the far SE of England we have to go all the way back to 2012 for me to class the summer as below average.

Model watching these days in summer isn't about looking for windows of good weather its about looking for a thundery plume and the subsequent cooler and briefly more unsettled patterns that follows as and when they occur. When they do occur they seldom last more than 3 or 4 days.

I generally tend to class May and September as summer months these days as well.

Back to the models its looking as though we have another 5-7 days of this beautiful set up before a 'potential' dip.

Its a climate these days more akin to that of central France from my childhood 30-40 years ago.

Excellent analogy there Steve - As to this year - This spring has been fabulous and this May has been in a class of its own.

Jetstream all over the place except the UK until Wed 3rd when a NW flow sets in across the UK, sometimes fragmentary, and finally tis wraps around and encircles ti UK Wed 10th to Sun 14th. More unsettled in the longterm?

GFS - current HP moves off to Norway by Mon 1st, slightly cooler E-lies in the S but very warm air entrained up the W coast and well into Scotland. Norwegian HP collapses Thu 4th which with new HP on Atlantic gives northerlies as forecast yesterday (also BBC WFTWA, who are normally reluctant to go that far ahead, so pretty firm forecast) N'lies continue for some days, stronger and weaker by turns,  with LP well established over the N Sea Tue 9th, drifting W and filling over the whole of the UK Sun 14th. Showery and cool esp the E coast?

GEFS for the S just above norm this week, cooler later but not far from norm. More rain about than forecast yesterday, starting around Thu 4th and with occasional big spikes. For Scotland similar but temp profile more pronounced and rainfall more continuous from Wed 3rd but less spiky after initial day or two.

ECM - similar to GFS but with added bonus of LP over Iberia Fri 5th  and deeper LP over Norway.drawing the N flow further S.  I have to go now before ECM loads for days after Fri,  so will edit later to see if LP gets down into the N Sea. EDIT ECM prefers a 2-centre solution, one centre over norway, one in Biscay, linked by a trough across the SE of the UK on Mon 8th

Azores high pushing in nicely day 10 this morning on the ECM. Probably a best case scenario after a brutal northerly for the time of year

Yes, it seems to me that the seasons (down in this corner of the BI at least) can be classified as:

May-September is summer.

October-March is autumn.

April is all four seasons jumbled randomly.

And on the models...

The pattern change in early June shown on GEFS(London) bringing some rainfall has now been shown consistently for some time.  Bring it on!