And that's half of why our climate is so utterly ****ing s***e.

(the other half being the tepid & damp winters)

Really? Actually I love weather like this. Proper muggy warmth with really intense sun, and interesting cloudscapes too. 

Thing is it's not proper British summer weather. It's proper continental European (Central France, Germany and the Alps) summer weather. Warm with sunshine and convective showers.

Proper average British summer weather is cloudy but dry, basically. At least here in the SE.

Growing signs of the blowtorch next week. Not certain by any means but it increasingly seems like an annual occurrence these days. 

Few more rainfall spikes in London Brian. Being IMBY in Berkshire and I'm sure Oxfordshire given the proximity, it really looks like drying out for the rest of the month. Back to watering the veg garden again...

Correction: most of Oxfordshire.

Drive a few buckets to Witney if you want to save on your water bill. 

Hottest ECM of the year, or hottest I have seen anyway. Well into the 30s by the end. 

I'd rather have 2/3 months of knowing rain is a rare occurrence, so ond can plan domestic holidays, days out, parties, etc with some confidence. 

I know that you are probably referring to SE England here, but think we can say that this has increasingly become the case here in SE Scotland as well, hence the really boring and uninteresting start to this summer which we have had here in Edinburgh.

Looking at the latest model output as well, I can't see anything different coming up within the more reliable time, from that same old borefest with the weather continuing to be at least, be more interesting elsewhere in the UK as has been the case until now.

Down in Yorkshire John and we've had 4 days of strong sun after a grey morning with thunder heard each day and amazing skies full of fantastic Cumulonimbus. Even funnel clouds on the Pennines to my west. This evenings forked lightning quite spectacular over the moors. Temperature 22 C. Glad to escape the Edinburgh haar!

Good to see you are now going fir a standard normal British summer not the write of you mentioned over the last week or two. 

A decent outlook this morning. Generally warmer than average (maybe hit in the south for a time) with some very usable weather and some rain around. 

It could get toasty in the SE for a time next week https://www.wetterzentrale.de/maps/ECMOPUK00_192_2.png 

As I said 7 days ago, the weather will start making news headlines by mid to late month. I see that is now indeed the case and will be very impactful between now and the weekend.

you also said temperatures would be 3-4c below average

An interesting very active front shown on FAX for tomorrow (Thu) across southern counties - looks minimal on the FAx chart but rainfall predictions are enormous.

GFS - the current rather slack and thundery LP dissipates  and then Sun 21st rather deep atlantic depresssion to the NW tussling with high to the SE; eventually they cancel each other out Sun 28th and give quiet weather for a day or two before another LP centre develops over Shetland Wed 1st soon moving E-wards.

GEFS - In the S becoming v warm around Thu 25th before dropping back to norm. Little rain, even in the next day or two. Scotland, NI and NW England temps close to norm (NW England gets a brief taste of the warmth further S) and rain quite frequent

ECM - similar to GFS but LP approaches closer on Fri 19th before backing off

Going by the ECM and it's mean this morning a decent very warm to hot spell for the SE and EA for 4 days from 24th to 27th. Temps 27c to 31c my punt .

In a good way or a bad way?

Exactly this. Azores high desperately trying to settle things down but being thwarted by that deep low pressure out to our north west 

As has been mentioned previously, it looks like fairly standard British summer weather that is on offer from most of the output at the moment. No notable heatwaves, but at the same time no washouts either. That would be my summation of it anyway.