HERE IS THE LATEST ANALYSIS FROM THE OUTPUTS OF THE WEATHER COMPUTER PREDICTION MODELS FOR TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY THURSDAY 15TH MAY 2014.

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION. High pressure remains slow moving across Southern Britain while NW Britain sees a waving front to the NW with SW winds ahead of it and occasional rainfall over NW Scotland.

GFS The GFS Ensembles shows a generally unsettled week next week as Low pressure slips South down over Western Britain towards the SW. It then looks like continuing to rotate around the UK for some considerable time always promoting rain and thundery showers across Britain, especially towards the South and West. Changes longer term look slow with a gentle rise of pressure gradually reducing the risk of rain later in maintained rather humid and sometimes warm conditions.

UKMO UKMO closes it's run with Low pressure well in control to the west of the UK, probably positioned over Ireland and the SW approaches. With Southerly winds it is likely to stay rather warm in any bright spells with rain being heavy and thundery at times as a result, especially towards the South and West.

GEM The GEM operational today continues to show slack Low pressure areas close to or over the UK from Day 6 to day 10 with frequent thundery showers across the UK with some warm sunshine in between and winds relatively light.

NAVGEM NAVGEM shows Low pressure down to the SW early next week before it elongates NE across the UK and NW Europe later next week. As a result showery weather seems likely with slack winds and some thundery showers at times with some warm and bright intervals as well at times.

ECM today shows a showery start next week as Low pressure becomes established to the SW and West of the UK. With Southerly winds from Europe wafting up across the UK, especially the East it would likely stay warm and humid. This would probably result in thundery outbreaks carried North at times with nowhere immune and this process looks like being maintained throughout the week and into next weekend.

MY THOUGHTS  Today's output continues to show Low pressure becoming the dominant player next week. However, the trend to push the Low more to the West has increased the chance of things staying rather warm across the UK next week with the rain becoming more showery in nature. With Southerly winds thunder is a distinct possibility at times almost anywhere next week and with some bright and sunny intervals between the showers it could feel very warm and humid at times. The longer term projections from GFS and GEM today suggest a continuation of rather unsettled and showery conditions with Low pressure never far away meaning further rain and showers for all possible and with the propensity for Low pressure to shift more towards the NW of the UK the resultant switch of winds towards the West and SW it could turn a little cooler with time.

Cheers GIBBY.

Plenty of convective opportunities throughout next week.

To be honest it looks like a forecasters nightmare next week; convection often lacking much organisation but potentially intense and slow moving, hazy sunshine (often from the high-level outflow of storms - usually hard to interpret from model output), and an environment capable of producing marked changes in temperature on a very local scale.

The broad swathe of similar maximums you see on GFS charts, for example, can only represent an overall average, with some areas probably managing some 2-3*C above while others fall a similar amount short.

Overall, it will be far less reliable weather for getting out and about than we have currently, so make the most of the weekend where it stays dry!

Onto the model output this morning, and there are large similarities between ECM, GFS and UKMO out to day 6. They all focus LP to the SW of the UK, though ECM does this a bit more so than the others, thanks to a stronger ridge of high pressure from the Atlantic building over the top.

It can't beat GEM though, which produces yet another solution that takes the trough further SW than the rest of the models. 

ECM and GEM are similar in terms of upper air temperatures, though. GFS is not far away, while UKMO doesn't have as much of a ridge to the east, which allows the return polar maritime air to push a bit further east than the others show. I'm not sure how much of a concern that should be really... the modelling of 850's past day 4 has often disagreed with the other models in one way or another.

Beyond day 6, the models seem rather confused as to how the ridge over the trough behaves and whether the main jet is able to pick up the cut-off low or not. With the jet stream looking weak, you'd think the trough would be left alone for some time really... which could be a bit dangerous for us in terms of potential rainfall amounts.

Nice to see the 6z's blowtorch easterly blast:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3362.gif

Pretty bizarre for May.

Next Tuesday perhaps looking rather 

http://modeles2.meteociel.fr/modeles_gfs/runs/2014051512/120-505UK.GIF?15-12

The models seem to have settled down on the trough locating to the SW, advecting some warm continental air our way but also some heavy/thundery rain. GFS has shifted to match ECM closely out to day 5, with temperatures in the high teens to low 20's away from the areas of persistent rain.

What the trough gets up to thereafter is highly uncertain; the models seem to be having a 'mare over what happens as an Atlantic ridge builds over the trough and meets the Scandinavian High.

GFS and GEM see some cold air coming around the Atlantic ridge, as the ridge doesn't quite join hands with the Scandi High. This then interacts with our trough and causes some considerable development and a tendency to track N or NE.

ECM sees more of a bridge of high pressure forming, diverting that colder air away and preventing the trough deepening and lifting effect. It's the only model showing this at the moment, yet I consider it a strong option, given how often high pressure cells to the NE tend to be moved on too quickly, and what happened with the trough we had last week, which was originally shown to be met by cold air and develop into a deep UK trough as a result, when what we actually saw was the system sliding away SE and a strong ridge building across behind.

http://www.meteociel.fr/ukmo/runs/2014051512/UW144-21.GIF?15-19

For whatever reason, UKMO has higher heights close to the east than the other models at day 6. It could help, even though the 'bridge' of high pressure is rather absent.

Quite a high chance of some heavy thundery rain early next week.

Some similarities to the unstable warm and humid late May 2008? Some of the model output looks quite similar to me.

Bloody hope we don't get the crap summer that followed 

Indeed. I think we had enough rotten summers from 2007 through to and including 2012 to do us for quite a few decades!

Shudders. Least sunny June on record here by a long way with just 75 hours of sun. Apocalyptic, haar-filled nightmare.

Please don't bring that analogy up again.

HERE IS THE LATEST ANALYSIS FROM THE OUTPUTS OF THE WEATHER COMPUTER PREDICTION MODELS FOR TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY FRIDAY 16TH MAY 2014.

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION. High pressure remains slow moving across Southern Britain while NW Britain sees a waving front to the NW with SW winds ahead of it and occasional rainfall over NW Scotland.

GFS The GFS Ensembles show Low pressure becoming the dominant player in the UK weather over the next few weeks. It sinks South to a position SW of the UK for a while before filling slowly as it drifts over the UK late next week. as a result thundery rain and showers will be frequent and heavy especially in the South and west with a lot of warm and humid air in tow for many. Longer term the model continues to feed slack low pressure areas across the UK at times with further showers and probably slightly cooler conditions.

UKMO UKMO ends it's run with Low pressure anchored close to SW Britain with a slack Southerly flow extending outbreaks of rain and showers across the UK, heavy and thundery in places especially towards the South and West. After a warm start to the week temperatures will fall back through the week but the humidity will be quite high.

GEM The GEM operational shows low pressure to the SW of the UK too for much of next week with bands of rain or thundery showers spilling North over the UK in humid air. Later on the Low pressure will cross NE over the UK with cooler and fresher air developing later as showers decrease in response to High pressure building from the SW.

NAVGEM NAVGEM still shows Low pressure down to the SW early next week before it crosses NE across the UK and NW Europe later next week. As a result showery weather seems likely with slack winds and some thundery showers at times with some warm and bright intervals as well at times before things begin to cool down somewhat later as light winds turn NW.

ECM today shows a showery start next week as Low pressure becomes established to the SW of the UK. With South or East winds from Europe wafting up across the UK,  it most likely will stay warm and humid away from North Sea coasts. This would probably result in thundery outbreaks carried North at times with nowhere immune and this process looks like being maintained throughout the week and into next weekend as slack Low pressure continues to remain close to UK shores.

MY THOUGHTS  This morning's output still show a slow dip into more unsettled weather next week. This will be most felt across SW areas of the UK but will occasionally affect other areas too. Low pressure is shown to lie to the SW of Britain for much of next week with relatively warm and humid air wafting up across the UK encouraging some thundery weather at times. Through the later stages of this morning's output there seems a gradual trend to shift the Low pressure either NE or East across the UK with a slack pool of unstable air remaining close to the UK encouraging further heavy and thundery showers at times as well as lowering temperatures away from the warm category towards more average temperatures for most late in the period in a more Westerly flow.

Thanks Martin.. Will have to protect the growing lettuce and tomato plants.

FROM Heavy thundery showers.....

Thanks Martin.. Will have to protect the growing lettuce and tomato plants.

i cant see frost is going to be about. temps look to be going down to average , but i think nights will be fairly warm.

Will need protection in case of getting flattened by heavy rains... In any storms...

Yes I didn't imply anything cold enough for frosts.

A convective set of runs this morning once more and often warm until later in the week when it cools off.

Beyond the warm, unstable run of days Monday-Wednesday, there's now a new trend present in the morning output;

It appears that some form of low pressure system will develop across the UK on Wednesday or Thursday, on the northern periphery of the main trough. It's location relative to the trough is important, as that steers it W then SW, and in fact both GFS and ECM show it travelling quite a way in that direction.

This in turn leads to new trough development to the SW of the UK, which both models then transfer into Iberia before an eventual journey NE'ward as a dissipating feature.

At the surface, this translates to a renewed surge of warm continental air and instabillity after a brief fresher interlude Thursday and/or Friday.

This is of course rife with uncertainty, as we have seen 'peripheral' low pressure systems modelled poorly many times before, but this new theme does tie in well with what Terry Scholey is anticipating
(http://www.gavsweathervids.com/terryscholey.html), and he's had a fairly good track record lately.

I like the sound of this. Sounds very nice.

Some serious rainfall there!

The current modeled totals for next week probably consist largely of the more persistent rain systems, rather than the convective storms. Recent reading that I've been doing for my dissertation has covered how models with a resolution similar to GFS tend to underestimate rainfall in the moderate-heavy range, though the error reduces as you near 10mm/hr rain rates.

The net effect is to underestimate convective rainfall, however. For that, we'll need to turn to models such as WRF and EURO-4, which can represent convection in far more detail, and with greater accuracy overall, although peak intensities can be rathe overdone.

On to the latest runs...  I see GFS has taken a step back on the trend to bring less cold air down the eastern flank of the Atlantic ridge, leading to stronger trough development over the UK and less to the SW - yet the run still features enough of a trough to the SW to promote a bit of a ridge close to the SE then E of the UK, bringing back the warm continental air after a brief absence... renewing the thunder/rain threat.

UKMO seems to see the colder air in the Atlantic having less of an impact on the UK trough, leaving it a weaker feature, and keeping that colder air out to the west rather than drawing it across as convergence occurs near the surface in the low pressure system.

Given the failed projections of strong trough development from interaction with cold air last week, I'm inclined to give UKMO the nod over GFS. 

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm1442.gif

Now how about ECM eh? Once again it shows notable low pressure system development, and once again that's not so much down to cold air interaction - there's much more of a ridge to the north of the trough and the whole pattern just seems a bit more amplified to me.

Given that I see ridge progression to the NE from the N/NW as something often underestimated, I'm inclined to give ECM the nod over UKMO... 

I've deduced that next week will be warm and humid and that forecast chart there sure shows some very hot stuff close by.

HERE IS THE LATEST ANALYSIS FROM THE OUTPUTS OF THE WEATHER COMPUTER PREDICTION MODELS FOR TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY SATURDAY 17TH MAY 2014.

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION. High pressure will decline slowly across Southern Britain while a cold front continues to move very slowly East across Northern and far Western areas tomorrow.

GFS The GFS Ensembles pack indicate slack Low pressure sets up towards the SW of England towards the middle of the week with outbreaks of rain carried across the UK on a warm Southerly wind. Later in the week and through week 2 changes look quite slow with slack and showery Low pressure never far away from the UK maintaining the risk of heavy Springtime showers mixed in with some warm sunshine.

UKMO UKMO ends it's run with Low pressure elongated from a position NE of Scotland SW to a slack and broad trough to the SW of the UK. With light winds across the UK next weekend further showery rain will be scattered about with average temperatures but with some bright, warm and humid weather at times too.

GEM The GEM operational maintains the trend towards Low pressure across the UK later this week with rain and showers in places before it trends towards a pressure rise from the SW later with drier and brighter weather extending NE across Britain in Week 2 with average temperatures.

NAVGEM NAVGEM keeps slack low pressure areas to the South next weekend with the South at risk from further showers while the North becomes drier and brighter under a weak ridge of High pressure..

ECM today maintains a showery week to come under Low pressure to the SW culminating next weekend in a strong build of pressure over Europe which in turn maintains Low pressure to the West of the UK. This would mean quite warm conditions persisting but with further outbreaks of rain and showers, these chiefly in the West and SW, heavy at times. Later in the output Low pressure remains well in control crossing the UK with cooler and still unsettled weather likely to continue for many with perhaps some cooler air in tow as winds turn more SW.

MY THOUGHTS  Today's charts continue to interpret showery weather as the main theme across the UK as slack Low pressure to the SW remains a dominant player in the weather for the next week or so. With the Low being to the SW the weather should remain reasonably warm and humid feeling in SE winds between the showers and thunder is a strong possibility for almost anywhere through the next week as a result. Longer term there seems little general consensus to bring an end to this pattern anytime quick with Low pressure remaining close by with High pressure locked over Eastern Europe although there is a minority of output that shows at least a chance of pressure building somewhat from the SW late in Week 2.