I just had to make a few comments on the weather outcome over the last two days with respect to the MetO predictions from Thursday evening. Not wanting to make glib jibes at the forecasters, lets be honest their performance in this time range is normally excellent. Also with the greatest respect, the forecasters were sprinkling in the caveat of complexity across their broadcasts on Thursday. However it is of interest that the caution showed was very well founded particularly with regards to my neck of the woods around Weston-Super-Mare.
1. Isolated thunderstorms were predicted during daytime Friday in a large swathe across Southern areas touching into South Wales, with yellow warning applied. Outcome....... the nearest storm to us was in Bournemouth on Thursday night. Isolated storms did affect other southern coastal areas and the south east through Friday.
2. Widespread heavy rain with more isolated storms were predicted to spread northwards from France on Thursday evening. Outcome...... mainly patch light rain spreads north with a few heavier pulses here and there.
3. On Saturday, brighter drier weather was predicted to spread into all of Southern England on Saturday. Outcome..... The improvement gets as far as Taunton, with the M4 corridor still swathed in cloud and patchy light rain.
It just goes to show that even the latest computers can be hoodwinked by the movements of a thundery low moving up from the south and of course this can apply to our friend the 'channel low'. And as is often said within this community, it will be boring when the forecasts are 100%.