Eh? I would have another look at that statement if I were you . If you define Northern England as the area between Scotland and a line running E/W from the Humber, then the population is about 15 million.

Northern counties:

Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear, North, West & East Yorkshire, Durham,

Population approx...

4.5 Million.

Lancashire is included in the CET so I've excluded it... Greater Manchester & South Yorkshire are on the northern boundaries of Central England so I've left them out too.

However if you wanted to add those 3 counties to the north then their total approx population is..

5.5 million

LOL, talk about jumping the gun!

Meanwhile, I'm hoping GFS has it right and I see a few snow showers in the Highlands over the bank holiday weekend.   Not seen snow fall over the late May bank holiday since 1999.   Which oddly enough was the last one I spent in the Highlands     The summer that followed was warm and very dry in the Highlands, and I think quite thundery down south?   Certainly no write off   For those who like pattern matching ...

Do you know if it is possible to obtain monthly values and anomalies for max/min and mean temp for individual stations in Northern Ireland? as I would like to compare them with values for stations here in the Republic, because interestingly, the first 4 months of this year, and so far, including the current one, have been either close to or below average in most of this region (going by the 1981-2010 climate period).

A wee history lesson coming up for anyone who thinks that the current model output for the near future means that we are doomed to have a bad summer. This was the chart for exactly 20 years ago today, 13th May 1995:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/1995/Rrea00119950513.gif

Note that pressure over Greenland in 1995 was fairly high, rather like what is being indicated for the near future. Mid-May 1995 sticks out in my mind clearly because although it had a very warm and sunny opening few days here, by the second week the weather had changed considerably and on the morning og 12th May, we had snow here, the only time in my life I can remember seeing snowfall so far into spring. By late month however, it had warmed up again:

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/1995/Rrea00119950527.gif

Notice that by late May, the blocking over Greenland had disappeared. And after a cool and sometimes cloudy first half of June in 1995, the rest of that summer certainly didn't give anyone cause to complain.

There is no need to be pressing the panic button at this time. Also, the extended Met Office outlook which goes into the early part of June doesn't seem overly bad as far as I can make out just now.

  No need to delete your post, it was a simple mistake.

I think I may write to the UK Met Office to ask if they will allow me access to individual station data for N.I as there seems to be a small discrepancy between anomaly values there and values from official readings from stations close by in the Republic. Probably a geographic quirk or something but the region isn't that huge either.

The NOAA don't have many stations to look at but the 90 day record shows a bit of a discrepancy between Dublin and Aldergrove.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/global_monitoring/temperature/global_temp_accum.shtml

Moomin, unless you, or anyone else here, happen to have such a thing as a crystal ball, then there is no way that you, I or anyone else can forsee what the next half-a-dozen or so weeks will be like with any certainty at all. "Several weeks" is a rather long time when it comes to out weather, and even if a particular pattern were to commence around now and last for say, 6 weeks, it would only take us into the second half of June. There is still another two or so months of summer to go after that.

Thanks for you reply Nouska. (PS, sorry to the mods for dragging this thread way off topic). Unfortunately Dublin Apt data cannot be trusted as the station was moved to a cooler location a few years back but strangely, data from there is still being set against the long term means of its previous location, which gives its monthly deviations lower than the rest of the country.

I just realized that I was comparing climate means from 1981-2010 for the Republic against 1961-1990 mean for Northern Ireland, so this would account for the discrepancies. This is how the monthly anomaly data looks for the first quart of the year from both regions using just the 1981-2010 climate period. More or less similar afterall :)

northern blocking is a very stubborn beast and I would suggest this northern blocking around Greenland looks particularly noteworthy.

as ever, time will tell.

Tell us about it, Northern Blocking in May really is hard to shift, just like this lot, it stuck around for a few weeks.....

And this next lot ended up even more extreme and lasted even longer!!

I have this feeling that having a highly amplified pattern dominating May, as opposed to flat westerlies with a north-south divide, is somehow a good omen for the summer season.

I guess that's largely based on having run through the April-May sequences for some of the better summers of the past few decades... blocking often seems to crop up to the NW of the UK during the middle to latter part of May.

Whether there's any real connection there or not, the outlook for the the next two weeks isn't looking too clever, as not one but two major troughs dive down across the UK from the northwest, and both take their time clearing away.

The first of these brings some pretty chilly air for the time of year during the first half of next week, after which the second may allow some less cold air into the mix later in the week, though this is not clear at the moment with ECM and GFS in disagreement regarding the path of the trough.

Beyond that, it's straw clutching time; both GFS and ECM produce lower heights over Canada and as a result the blocking high shifts toward Scandinavia:

Both solutions set the gears in motion for heights to rise across Europe in the 11-14 day range and link with the Scandi High, with GFS having a real good go at it on the 00z op run:

...and that's as good as I can come up with at the moment, looking into the far distance and hoping that, unlike at the turn of the month, the models aren't heading up the garden path! 

HERE IS MY LATEST ANALYSIS USING DATA SUPPLIED BY THE NWP OUTPUT COVERING 5 OF THE WORLDS MOST POWERFUL WEATHER COMPUTERS ISSUED AT 08:00 ON THURSDAY MAY 14TH 2015.

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION A depression will move ESE across Southern England and the English Channel through today with a ridge of High pressure following tonight.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn001.gif

MODELS-2 WEEK HEADLINE Changeable with some showers at times especially over the North and East but spells of dry and fine weather too for all. Generally rather cool, especially by night.

THE GFS JET STREAM ENSEMBLE FORECAST The Jet Stream axis will move gently North tomorrow and over the weekend to be travelling East across Northern Scotland. Then it eases back South as a UK trough is formed and realigns a long way South at the base of a trough late next week before breaking up and gradually returning North up the Western side of the UK two weeks from now.

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream

GFS OPERATIONAL The GFS Operational this morning shows High pressure to the SW over the weekend gradually losing control of the UK weather as Low pressure to the North of the UK slips South across and just to the East of Britain. Showers and outbreaks of rain in cool weather seems likely for all areas for a large porton of the run before Low pressure develops strongly over the Atlantic reversing winds to a more Southerly wind and milder weather spreads North and East across the UK with rain restricted to the North and West.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1441.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3841.gif

THE GFS CONTROL The GFS Control run this morning follows a very similar path through the first 10 days of the run before High pressure is shown to build across the UK in 14 days time with fine and dry weather for all by then.

THE GFS CLUSTERS The GFS Clusters are very High pressure based this morning with High pressure shown by many members to lie across or just to the West or NW of the UK with fine weather as a result. Just 20% of members indicate an Atlantic influence affecting the North and West of Britain in 14 days.

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=euro&MODELL=gefs&MODELLTYP=2&BASE=-&VAR=cpre&HH=372&ZOOM=0&ARCHIV=0&RES=0&WMO=&PERIOD=

UKMO UKMO this morning shows a cool and showery trough moving South over the UK early next week with High pressure lying close to the West of the UK by next Wednesday with fine and bright if never overly warm weather to all areas by then with the best weather in the SW.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rukm1441.gif

THE FAX CHARTS The Fax Charts follow the theme of the raw data charts in as much as High pressure to the SW keeps the weather largely fine if rather cloudy at times over the weekend across the South whereas the North sees occasional rin from Atlantic troughs. These slip South across the UK at the beginning of next week.

http://www.weathercharts.org/ukmomslp.htm#t120.

GEM GEM this morning shows a similar drift into cool and showery territory next week as Low pressure slips SE across all areas in the shape of a trough and then quickly followed by another one to maintain the cool and showery theme well out towards the end of the month when rather better conditions look like developing then.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rgem2401.gif

NAVGEM NAVGEM makes rather less of the longevity of the trough next week as High pressure moves in off the Atlantic later next week. So after several cool days with showers dry and warmer weather with some sunshine could be affecting all areas though with chilly nights late next week.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rnvg1681.gif.

ECM ECM indicates a largely cool and showery theme as we move through next week and the start of the Bank Holiday weekend as Low pressure areas slip SE across or to the NE of the UK with cool and showery NW winds affecting all areas with the least showers towards the SW but temperatures never very inspiring anywhere especially at night when touches of frost remain a possibility.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.gif

ECM 10 DAY MEAN The ECM 10 Day Mean Chart  from last night shows High pressure to the SW of the UK still badly positioned for the UK while Low pressure remains locked to the North and NE of Britain with cool air enveloping the UK in NW or West winds and showers.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem2401.gif

NOTABLE TREND CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS RUNS The trends mostly remain in agreement although with a few exceptions on cool NW winds and occasional showers across the UK for the extended outlook period this morning.

31 DAY HISTORICAL VERIFICATION STATS FOR GFS, UKM & ECM The current verification statistics for the past 31 days shows ECM leading the way at 3 days with 96.8 pts followed by UKM at 96.1 pts and GFS at 95.3. At 5 days ECM  leads UKMO with 86.0 over UKMO's 84.3 pts with GFS at 82.4. At 8 days ECM remains the leader with 53.4 pts over GFS's 52.5 pts. Then at Day 10 GFS gains superiority at 34.9 pts over ECM at 34.8.

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day3_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day5_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day8_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day10_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.prig
 

MY THOUGHTS Not much change in the overall theme of the output this morning. The story remains one of a North/South split in conditions at the weekend with the North seeing occasional rain in a Westerly breeze while Southern areas stay largely dry and bright. Then as we move into next week pressure falls for all as cool Low pressure slips South and SE over and to the NE of the UK with increasingly showery and cool conditions as winds veer NW. This pattern then appears to become locked in from much of the output with reinforcements to the pattern arriving from the North in time for the Bank Holiday Weekend. However, there are a few exceptions to this and the GFS Ensembles seem to like the idea of High pressure being close by to the UK in two weeks but whether that would be too late for the Holiday break is open to doubt. Navgem too builds High pressure in quickly later next week with brighter and warmer weather shown as a result. So a few different evolutions shown but all point towards rather chilly conditions in winds from a point between West and North for much of the time dragging cool winds down from the North so temperatures look like never being partiularly high in the near future. However, no large amounts of rain look likely and many parts of the South and West could see a lot of dry and bright weather with the most showers over the North and East in the afternoons. However, those same clearer skies to the South and West leave the door ajar in the risk of some areas receiving unwelcome ground frost at night.

Next update from 08:00 Friday May 15th 2015

i was being sarcastic 😉

That supports what I was saying yesterday nicely. Both of the Mays from the charts above were fairly poor months, but both were then followed by predominantly good summers, probably the best two summers of the 2000-09 decade come to that. It's also worth pointing out that the unsettled May of 2003 came after a very warm and dry April, rather like April this year.

Just goes to show that northern blocking of any description in May does not necessarily mean that the summer that follows will be poor.

Generally most of tonights runs out so far are cool and cyclonic for most of next week and into fi.

Some signs this evening that the models may have been overdoing it with the second sliding trough - the one for later next week.

It may arrive slowly enough to allow some milder air to rise up ahead of it and bring a break in the below average temperatures.

Of course the current output still turns it cooler again for the weekend, which makes sense 

On the broader scale, my eye is drawn to a lowering of heights around Greenland coupled with the expected emergence of high pressure in the vicinity of Scandinavia and/or Western Russia after what has been a long slumber.

If it persists, this combination may eventually serve to entice the Azores High to venture into Europe. This way around things was the preferred route during June and July last year, which proved generally on the warm side with occasional hotter days and some thunderstorms to go with them.

It would be fascinating to see how such a setup played out with an unusually hot Mediterranean allowing exports of hot air from North Africa to retain a lot more heat... just look at the SST anomalies:

While cooler air temperatures do look set to filter down toward the area during the next 10 days, it doesn't look substantial enough to have that much of an effect on SSTs... assuming it eases off within about a fortnight, that is.

I do believe that Europe is at a high risk of health-threatening levels of heat occurring at some point this summer. As always, the UK sits on the periphery of the risk area - but with early signals favouring a lot of Atlantic/Heat Plume clashes close to the UK this summer, we may end up being more worried about severe downpours or indeed thunderstorms.

For the time being, I'm going to keep an eye on the whole Scandi/Russia High business as that could change the game in favour of heat being spread out across a wider area - though this will tend to make it less intense, the potential for prolonged spells of unusual warmth will be on the increase for Europe, particularly eastern parts. Too early to say if the UK will get involved this side of the Solstice.

HERE IS MY LATEST ANALYSIS USING DATA SUPPLIED BY THE NWP OUTPUT COVERING 5 OF THE WORLDS MOST POWERFUL WEATHER COMPUTERS ISSUED AT 08:00 ON FRIDAY MAY 15TH 2015.

THE CURRENT GENERAL SITUATION A ridge of High pressure will cross East over the UK today followed by a cold front moving East and South across Britain tonight and at first tomorrow followed by a broad Westerly airflow.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn001.gif

MODELS-2 WEEK HEADLINE Changeable with some showers at times especially over the North and East but spells of dry and fine weather too for all. Generally rather cool, especially by night.

THE GFS JET STREAM ENSEMBLE FORECAST The Jet Stream axis will position itself in an Easterly direction across Scotland over the weekend before it moves South in both position and direction as a UK trough develops early next week. This less defined Jet flow then remains blowing in a loosely Southerly direction across the UK for the rest of the run as the trough over NW Europe is largely maintained over the remainder of the period.

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream

GFS OPERATIONAL The GFS Operational this morning shows High pressure to the SW over the weekend with a westerly flow across the UK with some rain over the North later on Sunday. Pressure then falls across the UK from the North with Westerly winds driving troughs across all areas early next week with rain clearing to sunshine and showers, heavy in places in rather cool conditions. As the showers lessen briefly later in the week a new Low replaces the one gone and renews the rain then sunshine and shower scenario with only small but subtle improvements in conditions in slack pressure gradients then shown at the end of the run.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1441.gif

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn3841.gif

THE GFS CONTROL The GFS Control run this morning increasingly differs from the operational in Week 2 as it holds the second Low more to the North maintaining the generally showery theme of the weather to end week 1. In week 2 though pressure steadily rises with High pressure developing to the North and NE of Britain allowing warmer continental winds to blow up across the UK from the SE later with a lot of dry and sunny weather too though the far SW and West could continue to see occasional rain for a time before things show signs in the end of the run charts of drying up here too.

THE GFS CLUSTERS The GFS Clusters are again very High pressure based this morning with High pressure shown by many members to lie across or close to the UK in 14 days time with almost universal support for dry and fine weather for all areas with little chance of rain by then.

http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000&CONT=euro&MODELL=gefs&MODELLTYP=2&BASE=-&VAR=cpre&HH=372&ZOOM=0&ARCHIV=0&RES=0&WMO=&PERIOD=

UKMO UKMO this morning shows a cool and showery trough moving South over the UK early next week with High pressure out to the SW gradually killing off some of the showers by midweek in a generally cool NW feed.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rukm1441.gif

THE FAX CHARTS The Fax Charts endorse the theme of the operational run with rain bearing fronts clearing the UK early next week in increasingly showery and unstable West then NW airflow bloing down over the UK towards the middle of the week.

http://www.weathercharts.org/ukmomslp.htm#t120.

GEM GEM this morning takes a very showery pattern into it's run this morning as Low pressure areas trundling SE down over the North Sea next week maintains (once arrived) a very showery and cool pattern with winds from the North and NW for the remainder of the run. High pressure is shown to lie out over the Atlantic to the West and NW on the end frames of the run.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rgem2401.gif

NAVGEM NAVGEM like yesterday quickly builds High pressure in from the SW later next week after a couple of days of cool and showery NW winds which in themselves follow an active trough South over Monday and Tuesday.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rnvg1681.gif.

ECM ECM indicates a less pronounced second attack from the North some of the other output shows this morning instead feeding a filling trough down over the UK then. The first attack early in the week is still well defined though with rain then sunshine and showers likely before the less showery conditions develop late next week and into the Holiday weekend. While a heatwave is not shown the end of the run would likely see a lot of dry and fine weather with just a few afternoon showers in the East.

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Recm2401.gif

ECM 10 DAY MEAN The ECM 10 Day Mean Chart  maintains the stance of a slack Northerly flow with sunshine and some showers in temperatures close to or a little below average generally

http://www.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Reem2401.gif

NOTABLE TREND CHANGES FROM PREVIOUS RUNS The model output trends toward rather cool conditions in Northerly winds slackening later quite well supported with High pressure creeping in close to the UK later in the output runs.

31 DAY HISTORICAL VERIFICATION STATS FOR GFS, UKM & ECM The current verification statistics for the past 31 days shows ECM leading the way at 3 days with 96.7 pts followed by UKM at 96.0 pts and GFS at 95.2. At 5 days ECM  leads UKMO with 85.7 over UKMO's 84.2 pts with GFS at 82.3. At 8 days ECM remains the leader with 52.5 pts over GFS's 51.6 pts. Then at Day 10 GFS gains superiority at 34.6 pts over ECM at 34.1.

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day3_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day5_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day8_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.png

http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/gmb/STATS_vsdb/allmodel/daily/cor/cor_day10_PMSL_MSL_G2NHX.prig
 

MY THOUGHTS The patterns shown in recent days within all the outputs remain the main focus again this morning with the likelihood of a spell of cool NW or even North winds blowing down across the UK for some time very real again this morning. The weekend will be generally set fair over the South once a band of light rain clears tomorrow morning. The North sees the precursor of the cool and showery theme from Sunday as a trough brings rain which early next week feeds SE across all areas introducing the cool and showery theme to all areas thereafter. The showers look like being heavy and thundery for a few days and even wintry on Scottish mountains before a tempering of conditions later in the week is shown in various degrees of extent as a ridge builds in slowly from the West. Then the behaviour of a second attack from the North is disputed to some degree by the models with a split between the models between a repeat of the showery early week process to a much weaker attack from others meaning less showers for all with more in the way of a chance of dry and fine if not overly warm weather possible for many over the Bank Holiday weekend. Then towards the end of the run there is some encouragement from the GFS camp this morning that warm and dry conditions could become established by the end of the two week period but outside of it's own ensembles support  this can hardly be classed as a universal message at the moment. So in a nutshell after a showery and cool period next week the legacy of which looks like possibly extending through the Bank Holiday weekend for many areas too with a rather cool weekend generally, the weather then looks like it could become more settled late in the period but taken as a whole amounts of rain will not be huge for anyone through the two weeks with a lot of dry weather overall especially towards the South and West.

Next update from 08:00 Saturday May 16th 2015

Sounds half decent spring weather for here, with the possibility of something better ahead for all as we head into summer. Not bad considering summer was over a few days ago...... cough