After a wet start to the year where my garden was under water, now there are so many large cracks around. If you dropped your phone in one of them, that would be it as these go down several feet already. Could do with rain, but not too much. We seem to have weather that equalises over time over here, but some extremes as well!

Indeed - certainly very nice until mid-afternoon.

New low dropping into the current broad trough and getting cut off to the south eventually. Humid easterlies and thunder risk in a few days. Doesn't get much better 

ECM, on the other hand, drops the trough through then looks to settle down quite nicely. 

Not much cheer in the 10-day outlook charts, either for temp or rainfall http://www.wxmaps.org/pix/prec4 Week 2  in the pptn charts is what I'd call a real European monsoon!

GFS - trough of LP coming in from the NW, working its way S-wards over Wales Thu 11th and Iberia Sun 15th with E-ly winds generally for next week but warmth seems to be advected N-wards over Norway; the LP returns N-wards to Ireland Thu 18th and then over England Sun 21st with winds becoming more NE-ly. Just a hint of the Azores High making a re-appearance at end of run on Wed 24th - but didn't we see that modelled a week ago for earlier delivery?

GEFS - remains optimistic over temps after Thu 11th with mean of runs a little above average (though the op run is a much cooler outlier) but rainfall totals have been ramped up, some around the 11th then some big totals for the S Coast Mon 15th -  Wed 17th, and not dying away much after that. Scotland and the N of England have moderate rainfall throughout.

ECM - one for the optimists this morning. After taking the LP down into Iberia earlier (Fri 13th) and deeper, it brings back HP more quickly with ridge across Scotland Thu 18th, not however preventing troughs across S England which look rather thundery

Easterlys are usually good for us in the west for sunny weather.  If theres a cold breeze, that will be easily tempered by the hot sun.  At its strongest now.

We just need clear skies here and temps are easily locally 20+ yesterday a good example.

Absolutely. West is definitely best and northeast is least (favoured)!

I thought it would be impossible to get a summer worse than 2012 but this monumentally awful season is putting in a valiant effort.

Day after day of northerlies bringing grey skies and single figure temperatures like nothing I've ever known in summer and once this torture is over it moves into more horror in the shape of June 2007 style easterlies.

A complete write-off with nothing to look forward to yet again.

GEFS 00z mean notable warmer than GFS 00z op in the 5 to 10 day period. 

It's a pity we're not just 8 days into summer with plenty of time for improvement. 

I'm not convinced it's going to be that sunny, even in the west. High pressure looks slack and is likely to bring cloud with the risk of showery rain at times. It might be a case of warm uppers but not especially warm on the ground.  I hope I'm wrong. 

Is that really 20C warmer than average across northern Scandinavia??

-13C colder then average for Gibraltar 😆

Agreed.  We now need to see this overlain by the 0zs in the same positive warm trend.  Worth a watch.  The trouble is, relying on proximity to a LP area is a very risky way of getting your warmth, particularly down to the SW.  

Jetstream is forecast to loop round England from Thu 11th and the cut-off low so formed taking a trip to Spain before coming back to Ireland Sun 14th. It disappears as a cut-off feature Tue 16th with the main jet running S of the low and between that and a weaker N jet, HP can move in from the E. Something like that persists until Sun 21st when another cut-off loop forms over England which eventually shows signs of breaking up Thu 25th. All looking a bit stormy for the S & W.

GFS pressure synopsis taking its cue from the jet - LP forming over SW Britain Thu 11th and staying in that general area with E-lies of one sort or another to about Thu 18th when the low is a slack LP area over the UK. New trough of LP from Atlantic then moving in and covering 1010mb over all UK Mon 22nd, decaying as HP approaches from SW Thu 25th. 

GEFS runs - temps a little above average approx Thu 11th - Sat 20th then back closer to seasonal norm, not much difference between runs. Quite regular rain throughout, some runs with big totals in the S. Less rain for Scotland but still never really dry.

ECM - Similar to GFS at first but pressure rises from Thu 18th unlike GFS with LP keeping further off in the Atlantic

Trying to recall when we last had a very warm, very wet summer pattern... it's been a while. We seem to have alternated between dry and warm, dry and average, average/cool and wet.

The classic warm wet month this century would be August 2004.

2007 was very warm.

August 2018 was very wet and warm.

2007 was certainly wet, but temperatures were close to average and very cool by recent standards, with only June being on the warm side. For E&W, 14.7, 15.0 and 15.3. The July and August figures were the coolest since those months in 1993.

August 2018 was 16.5, which is above average but not by much. And not that wet: 95% of average across the country although wetter in the SE.

Looking through my summer index numbers, the last time each summer month was in both the top 30% (i.e. top 15) since 1971 for warmth, and the top 15 for rainfall, was:

June: 2016 and 2017. So pretty recent. Before that we have to go back to 2007, then 1982.

July: 2010, then 2003 and 2001

August: Last year, then 2004. 1997 was also warm and wet.

The only summer month in the entire series since 1970 that was in the top 10 for both heat and rain was August 2004. 6th warmest, and 1st wettest.