That's just it, after that wet and thundery weekend, yesterday's attempt at getting a tan was scuppered by overcast conditions and a spell of rain. Today was a better day in terms of bright spells, especially in the afternoon but a fresh wind coming in from the North East meant I couldn't be bothered to put out the garden chair. It hasn't been at all a bad day by all accounts of course but it is feeling like this summer so far has been "missing something" where I can't quite put my finger to it - just like last year. The only difference is that I've had more rain this July than last year's where 67 mm has fallen so far - which the lawn is appreciating greately!
  But thats's the result of having high pressure often to our west so we tend to have winds coming in from the north or north east . . . again, just like last year and the outputs seems to show very little change on that kind of thing. Great for the north and west of the UK but rather underwheming for the far South East corner (apart from London, of course) given we are the most nearest to the continent.

Anyway, I'm steering this thread off topic again - and I'm supposed to be taking a break from my own Cloud Master weather forecasting duty anyway.

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Ian,I do wonder if Folkestone is located in the middle of the North Sea, judging by your posts. 7 miles east of you in Dover, my weather station has recorded the best summer in terms of warmth and lack of rainfall (1 June - 23 July) since 2006! We are currently in a run of 20c plus days which may be the longest since August 2009. You may be underwhelmed but that would seem to reflect your perceptions more than reality. My kids are in our swimming pool every day and my tan is coming on well. Townsfolk are all happy with the warm sunny weather.
WI

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HERE IS MY LATEST ANALYSIS FROM THE OUTPUTS OF THE WEATHER COMPUTER PREDICTION MODELS FOR TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY WEDNESDAY JULY 23RD 2014.

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION. Pressure is High to the NE with a light easterly flow across the UK.

MODELS-2 WEEK HEADLINE  Dry, bright and warm for much of the time. Becoming somewhat cooler with the chance of a little rain at times mostly in the North.

GFS The GFS operational this morning shows a gradual shift towards somewhat cooler weather slipping down from the North from the weekend on as a High pressure ridge slips South from Scotland to a point to the South of Britain. With pressure falling somewhat the incidence of a little rain becomes more common especially over the North as shallow Low pressure slips South. Later in the run another ridge brings back fine and warm weather as it too slips South and clings on across Southern Britain until late in the run. The Ensembles indicate a similar pattern though make more of a potent Westerly flow and cloudy weather with rain at times for all in Week 2 though High pressure remains never far away to the South.

UKMO UKMO this morning shows High pressure to the SW becoming dominant next week with it's close proximity continue to feed plenty of dry weather to most parts. A Westerly breeze over the North may bring more cloud at times and a little rain in the far North while the South though warm gradually becomes fresher and less warm as we move deeper into next week.

GEM The GEM operational looks very similar to UKMO at Day 6 moving forward to allow falling pressure to setup slowly across the UK with a slow increase of the risk of outbreaks of rain and showers as we move deep into next week between some continuing dry and warm spells due to shallow Low pressure sinking down from the NW.

NAVGEM NAVGEM holds High pressure well in control of the UK centred just to the SW of the UK with a strong ridge across the UK. A period of cooler and fresher winds moving down from the North early next week looks likely before things warm up again n the South by this time next week. Dry weather should be shared by most if not all of the UK.

ECM The ECM operational is much more complex in synoptics with no definitive pressure area in control later next week. Troughs moving down from the NW bring temperatures back down several degrees with the risk of showers in places. By the end of the run light winds and high humidity together with slack pressure indicates a heavy shower risk between some sunny spells for most.

MY THOUGHTS  There is quite a lot of variation between the main models this morning in how they handle the course of events next week. What does seem more certain is that temperatures will fall back somewhat from the North early next week and some output suggests that this could be accompanied by showers, this especially by GFS, GEM and most so from ECM. UKMO and NAVGEM on the other hand show much more resilience from such a fall of pressure holding High pressure more in control with sunny spells and continuing warm weather more likely. Longer term still the general theme is still for a lot of dry and settled weather though this shows support for being tempered by the occasional shower, perhaps moreso over the North than elsewhere though nowhere is likely to be anything less than set fair.

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Yes GFS has moved towards ECM this morning but none of the outlook is poor and the south remains warm and sunny throughout.

However, the temps. will fall everywhere from the very high values of this week which is a relief because I am off on holiday on Friday and was worried about my garden pots and hanging basket dying in the heat!

Andy

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ECM has moved more towards GFS than GFS towards ECM to my eyes; this morning's ECM run no longer slides that LP SE and instead has the track due east that GFS and UKMO have been showing for a couple of runs now.

It does appear that we're going to be 'saved' from the sliding low scenario by upper trough development (500mb level - a marked region of lower 500mb heights) in the Svalbard region; the LP in question, even on the ECM run, is a shortwave feature, and these tend to follow the pressure gradient towards upper troughs so long as they are close enough.

ECM does cut it close though, with the upper trough taking longer to develop and the shortwave LP taking longer to track east.

 

An encouraging sign for the extension of the heatwave some way into next week is that even the amplifcation-hungry GEM model has flattened the evolution this morning:

http://modeles.meteociel.fr/modeles/gem/runs/2014072300/gem-0-216.png?00

 

Funny how a few days ago, more amplification looked like a good thing bringing a stronger ridge to our shores, but then that shortwave LP came into the picture and all of a sudden a flatter pattern has become the better scenario by far! 

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No significant drop in temps until end of next week so far as I can deduce from the output. Am I missing something?

Ian, are you on one of your Wednesday wind ups ?

That has to be the oddest post I have ever read, are we living in the same town ?

18.2c is the average summer maximum temperature here on our part of the coast in June, 19.5c in July and 20.2c in August. So far this season..(since May) 20c has been exceeded no fewer than 42 times...this is an increadible statistic for our usually SW'ly sea breeze cooled coastline.

In terms of sunshine we are running at 130% of the normal since May and although rainfall this month has been above average (after a dry June that only gave 20mm) this has been from intense thundery downpours.

I think you need to take a break from all things weather related for a while my friend and gain a little perspective.

It's a cracking summer, get out of the hobby room and enjoy it !

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Yes, and what better way than to get yourself over to Dover seafront this Saturday, and come and say hello! I'll be there with the Red Cross team all day (Dover Regatta)

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Haha. But it's today that it does truly feel like a proper full on Summer's day. But regarding yesterday I think my close promixity to the coastline may have a lot to do with it where I do tend to feel the sea breeze quite a bit. I did try to sit in the garden yesterday but the fresh brisk wind and the way the sun kept bobbing in and out behind scudding cumulus made me be like "naaaa, perhaps tomorrow" - and here I am in the front garden today with the iPad to hand and getting quite sunburn.

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Here in eastbourne its been a truly great summer so far indeed since may , june had less than 10mm of rain and sunshine and warmth in abundance throughout since May. The South east has done especially well generally and temperatures have been high both during plume conditions which favour north kent and this week of east or north easterlies the sussex coast has been favoured. This is the UK not the Med and rarely will the weather be perfect all of the time everywhere at once,so many local effects which is what keeps our weather so interesting!

Shows how quickly things can change. Next week not looking anywhere near as good as it was a day or two ago.

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Edit - is ECM going down a different route? http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm721.gif

The trend this summer has been for these unsettled scenarios to get downgraded.  Shallow lows often leave many places bone dry  and lucky ones sunny too.  My view is that the Azores high will bully any lows out of the way pretty quickly.

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Was thinking much the same thing, think we've seen the last 2 or 3 weeks the models keep trying to introduce cooler conditions but it never seems to happen (or as last weekend it's very transient), similar in winter when we have a block to the east

Has been well and truly too warm working in London this week though and being on the bus/tube, now I'm older I don't know how I did it for so long before we moved!

On the face of it the GEFS do look quite poor from Sun/Mon onwards.

It's hard to say how this is going to pan out. It could downgrade and fine weather return, but we know we can get these sudden flips to a totally different weather type (look at July and August 2006 for example)

I'm on the fence at the moment.

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JMA is very reluctant to bring in low pressure, it succeeds only on day 6 in the NE.

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CLOSING THIS ONE >>>>>>>>>>>

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