http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn19817.gif

Its not that special though lets be fair

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^^^ that though is a different model!

With much colder 850's at the same time!

Brian Have you downgraded your analysis for next week in the S /SE? I thought the models were showing an improving dryer and warmer sceanario....

The GFS 06Z doesn't look great, but the 00Z and 12Z runs are the ones that I pay most attention to from that model. Personally speaking, I have about as much faith in the 06Z GFS run as I do in the 18Z pub run!

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Not sure what the verification stats are David but has often been said 6z and 18z verify poorly in comparison to the 0z and 12z.

Let's hope this is just a blip because there's no doubt this week is dare I say very reminiscent of some of our worse summers of recent years.

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Well...we're on our fifteenth day with zero rainfall. An absolute drought I think, and quite an unusual event for here. Do i think a wet spell is imminent? I bloomin' well hope so! But equally I can see us getting a few mm and then the 'wet spell' ending next week...

A max of 7C would be so far below anything ever recorded at this time of year that it just won’t happen. Lowest maxes this late in the summer have been around 10C – as recently as 24th June 2015 as well as in late June 1980 and early July 1978. Do not know of any maxes of 9C or lower as late as the final week of June here though there was one at Aboyne on Wednesday 25th June 1997 – a day I had the pleasure of going on a field trip to Loch Muick where it was even colder.

One thing is for sure in this era of ridiculously wet and dull summers, it is far easier to get close to record low temperatures than it is to get near record highs. It’s only due to the good weather coinciding with weekends, that this putrid summer isn’t feeling as bad as 2007 and 2012, because in rainfall terms at least, it is actually even worse and will be touch and go with the vile outlook whether or not the 1997 rainfall record is broken.

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I have mentioned a few times over on the moaning thread that I didn't really hold out much hope for this summer (the high rainfall totals which we have had so far this month and the very poor short-term forecasts seem to be keeping things on course for proving that right just now) despite the promising signs for further into July which has been shown recently on many medium to long term models. However, I have just seen something from Dr. Simon Keeling which seems to be backing that up even more. Looking at the SSTs, we can clearly see that there is a similar sort of cold blob in the mid-Atlantic which was thought to have resulted in that cooler than average summer which we had back in 2015.

However, there is also a lot of warm water around the UK itself, which also extends down into the Mediteranaen. Simon showed us a forecast for not too far into the future which shows the SSTs to have cooled down quite a lot around the UK. It is thought that cold SSTs tend to dampen any convection and be more like to promote the creation of higher than average height and so, it would not surprise me if those promising indications for next month were largely based on that SST forecast since those colder then average SSTs would be likely to promote more ridging around the UK, and this is also supported by those relatively short-term predictions for the both the AO and NAO to return to a more positive phase which would indicate a stronger Azores High.

In order to get to those colder SSTs though, the seas around the UK would have to cool down quite a lot in a short period of time for that happen, and that makes this a bit unlikely to happen. Furthermore, warm sea temperatures around the UK tend to create more energy and more instability in the atmosphere, thus promoting lower than average heights around the UK and therefore, increasingly the liklihood of more unsettled weather. Indeed, Simon even thought that this might be at least partly responsible for generating the really unsettled weather which is coming up this week. Added to that is the fact that the models appear to be backing off a bit from that idea of better weather during July and I suspect that those SSTs around the UK being warmer than expected, could be a factor on that.

Furthermore, the longer-term predictions for the AO and NAO seem be pointing to that returning to negative state by the latter part of the summer, thus ensuring that any positive phase in the short term is very short lived. That does not bode well for the rest of the rest of the summer either if that happens. If it is true that the medium term models are backing away from that idea of better weather for July, that means that there will then be no signs of any decent summer, even up until the middle of July at least. I know that it is still early days for this summer but by the middle of July, we will then be half way through the summer, and that will mean that time will already be starting to run out for things turning around and providing us with a decent summer overall.

Added to that is the fact that the NAO and AO could then act against us after that (that is, if it is a decent summer which we are after). That in turn should demonstrate exactly why I'm struggling to see much for this summer.

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Pretty uninspiring stuff all round tonight not so bad in the SE at times, NW though virtual right off next 10 days. plenty of rants on the way in the summer moaning thread methinks. 

 

 

 

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The MetO updates for this month haven't been that far off the mark. They went for an unsettled opening to June, followed by a drier and warmer spell around mid-month beofre a return to more unsettled weather towards the end of the month. That is pretty much how the month has panned out in reality.

That is not to say that their anticipated improvement for mid-July will definitely happen, but if their current thoughts for July end up being as accurate as their predictions for June, summer isn't over yet by any means.

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Parts of eastern Scotland could reach 19c on Friday as winds swing around to more of a north to northwesterly

The predictions for June may well have fine, but that hasn't been enough to prevent this month from being much wetter than average overall, and I'm not sure if that was accurately predicted or not. If we assume that the June predictions were accurate though, this might have ended up being a fluke. That can sometimes have even with long term models as we found out last year when the CFS predicted about six months in advance, the really really mild and wet winter which would later follow in 2015/16.

Most people at the time (including gavin P. in his videos at that time) saw such an extreme forecasts so far in advance as being very much over the top, but the CFS continued to stuck to its guns and in the end, that was exactly what happened. However, that is probably about the only time in which they have even come close to getting that right, and that in turn shows that long term modelling can never be taken seriously.

It is the same with the Met Office as well, and we have to remember that this is the same Met Office who a number of years ago, was pulverised by the public and the media for predicting the barbecue summer which never actually happened, or the mild winter in arond 2009/10 which as we all know, never happened either. In fact this public criticism was so great that not long afterwards, they were actually forced to give up on publicly announcing their long term forecasts altogether over the media.

I will stress though that I'm not actually criticising the Met Office in any way here. What actually happened here was a result of a misunderstanding at the time by the public regarding the nature in which long term modelling works, or the fact that this can never really be fully relied upon and I don't mactually think that Met Office were in any way at fault here. Neverthless, the fact that long term modelling can never be fully relied on means that although they might have predicted June fairly well, that still doesn't mean that I can fully trust any of those hints of better weather in July which they have been giving.

The reason for is that is simply down to the fact that long term forecasting can never be fully reliable, and not because I don't trust the Met Office in particular. What I mentioned above is therefore, what I think will happen during the rest of the summer based on SSTs, the NAO and the AO but as with any other form of longer term forecasting, I hope that you will also take this as something which can never be fully relied upon but something which you can draw your own conclusions from.

 

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Got a link (for the 19°C)? I would have thought 16°C at a push based on current data.

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Decent mid term GFS on the 18z run. Shows a slow but steady recovery towards summer as Brian hinted at from the Ensembles yesterday. The 144-192hr period is the critical time as the heat rapidly intensifies to our south again and sends part of jet back north, thus sucking the heat up towards us.

http://old.wetterzentrale.de/pics/Rtavn1922.gif 

One run and obviously FI but shows that this unsettled spell may not last as long as it was feared by some.

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At the moment though, we are already just about at the point where we have already had our average June and july rainfall put together so far this month, and it's raining yet again as I write. This means that we are already at the point where we will need to be experiencing an exceptionally dry July and August if this isn't going to go down as a wetter than average summer here in Edinburgh, overall. This means that even if the better weather which is being modelled for July comes off, we are actually technically speaking, not all that far away already from the point where we can write off this summer altogether in terms of rainfall, at least.

Furthermore, I would imagine that whilst I'm not going to write off our chamces altogether for better weather during July (this is the British weather that we are discussing after all, where anything can end up happening regardless of what the models tell us), any decent weather which does come up during July is probably going to be most likely to occur in the south of England (as what tends to be the norm with the weather in this country), and that might not end up helping us all that much up here in Scotland where we would therefore, still be at the greatest risk of remaining unsettled throughout that period in question.

 

 

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ECM is trending more to high pressure building during the first week of July though of course it is in FI so nothing to get too excited about at present. We'll just have to deal with the much needed (for my location) rain over the next few days....

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/40412290

Slowly getting a bit better from Saturday

Lets hope - It grey and overcast imby and just 17C.

 

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06z showing some more seasonal temperatures next week

The ensembles are getting flatter and flatter, with little spread around the mean. Suspiciously so.

That's usually the sign for some major pattern change that will take us by surprise at short notice.

You heard it here first...

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Yep - at first site they look very boring for summer. Hopefully something will change

This is more like it a new trend hopefully

Much more encouraging (and thanks for that link earlier too Gavin).

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I remember it was flat lined before the major heatwave came up and I hope it does the same again for early July, each run showing more stronger HP coming back here at the weekend and the unsettled spell would only last 3-4 days so not bad.  

I survived Glastonbury and there was only a tiny bit of rain doing nothing to dampen the extremely dry and barren land. Wonderful and a stark contrast to last year.

After a crap week this week signs of things settling down once again as we head towards the weekend. Still a lot of time for it to go pearshaped and not to be trusted quite yet, but positive signs.

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

 

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