Agree 100% Michael. Nothing for fans of proper summer weather to be downhearted about this evening, IMO.

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Indeed. Very encouraging trend across all models and it looks increasingly as though this week will be a blip in an otherwise lovely summer. We haven't had a drop of rain today here either so it's win win here. The UKMO 12z looks particularly encouraging in my view.

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Major heatwave jires? When.. what year?

Looks like a cycle that started with the fine spell toward the end of May followed by a doom'n'gloom outlook on the models that flipped into another ridged scenario that led to our recent heatwave may repeat again. I'm not always a fan of patterns repeating, but it's too interesting to be ignored in this case.

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A very nice ECM 12z too rounds off an excellent afternoon of model watching for summer lovers. Increasing confidence of a quick settle down and a return to summer.

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Yep looking good tonight the beeb are not on board yet but I've found them to be 24 hours behind the models over the past few months if this high pressure is still showing in the morning I would expect quite a change tomorrow night

Despite all of the posts which I have been seeing on this thread today about a more promising outlook for next week, Louise Lear on the BBC's Week Ahead forecast which I have just watched doesn't seem to be in agreement with any of that. According to that forecast, the Azores High is still too far to the SW of us during next week to be of much use to us here in the UK, with the main jet stream running right across the country with Scotland remaining on the cooler side of that jet.

With that set-up, it probably wouldn't be quite as unsettled next week as what it just now but still isn't likely to that great, and certainly not as good as what a number of people on this thread seem to be thinking with low pressure systems still being likely to affect Scotland in particular, and possibly further south into England and Wales as well. As for the shorter term, it is raining here yet again despite the drier forecast which was given for tonight. Tomorrow's rain which is expected to affect parts of England is still shown to be the south of us then, but much closer to us in the Scottish Borders than originally forecast.

That means that it now, wouldn't take much of a further adjustment to bring that rain further north yet again and bring us another miserable day for tomorrow as well and as it is, that rain which we are expected to see on Thursday, is now shown as arriving earlier tomorrow evening than originally thought. As for the summer as a whole so far, it has been strange in many ways because there hasn't actually been any dominant pattern (last winter for example, that dominant pattern was a blocking high to the SE bringing exceptionally mild air from the south).

What is happening instead is that we are actually swinging between the two opposite extremes of weather patterns with everything happening only in short bursts. This means that one minute, we are getting a brief burst of 1976 or 2003 style heat whilst the next minute, we are then seeing a few shades of 2007 and 2012. If that pattern continues from now on, that does make it unlikely that the current unsettled spell will last for any length of time, and also makes it likely that those people who are predicting the next decent spell of weather to be not all that far away to be perfectly correct.

However, this would also make it likely that such a spell of decent weather would just be brief, and that it wouldn't be too long after that before we then went into that next really wet spell. Another thing to take into consideration is that these wetter spells have being providing us with so much rainfall in this part of the world, that these spells of decent weather which we have had in between have just not been able to come even close to cancelling that out completely.

That means that if this pattern was to continue for the rest of the summer, we could well find that this will end up still going down as a really miserable summer overall here in terms of rainfall, despite having those spells of decent weather ahead as well. It is therefore going to be really interesting to see how that all develops.

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With apologies for going off topic, in answer to your comments John, I think it was said on a previous page that the BBC have been rather playing catch up on the models this summer. With the 18z GFS also going the way of strong ridging from the Azores High, I would imagine we will see a much more promising outlook from the Beeb over the next day or so. 18z GFS is continuing a very encouraging trend which ridges the Azores in from this weekend and then it sets up a cell of HP slap bang over the UK next week.

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I apologise for not picking up on what you said about the BBC but the only post which I saw regarding that was the post which immediately precedes my last post on this subject and since that only came in just as I was in the process of preparing my last post, I didn't actually have the chance to react and adjust to that. These threads can take up quite a large number of pages and that means that I don't always have the time to read every single post which is there, so that is something which people need to understand.

Putting that aside though, you will see from reading the rest of my last post that I wasn't actually disagreeing with those people who have been pointing towards a better outlook ahead for next week. If you read much further on, you will see that I did say that the current unsettled weather would probably not last all that long, and that there is a good chance that we could get some decent weather next week which is actually in complete agreement with what everyone else has been saying.

The point which I was merely trying to put across was the fact that the roller coaster nature which this summer has taken so far would seem to indicate that any spell of better weather next week would probably only be likely to be brief if that was to continue, with the next unsettled spell probably following not all that far away after that. Of course, I could well be wrong on that front. As you will seen from my posts on other various other threads on this forum, I want to see a decent summer as much as anyone else and so, I would like to think that these model predictions are correct.

That means that for once, I am actually hoping that I am wrong on this occasion. In the end, the weather will also do what it is going to do anyway regardless of the model output, but that can also mean that any spell of decent weather which lies ahead could well actually end up lasting for longer than expected. The point which I was making was that this is probably going to be unlikely if the roller coaster nature of this summer which we are seeing so far was to continue, but it will be interesting nevertheless to see if that ends up being the case or not.

 

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Models have backed off a bit from the summery outlook this morning. Not surprising given developments are more than 96 hours ahead.

More runs needed! 

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Well the 0z Euros, particularly the ECMWF shows perhaps why the BBC were not calling a swift return to settled conditions again. The ECM has done a complete volte face from last night's lovely run and look much more changeable and possibly quite wet in the mid term. UKMO is also not quite as promising this morning, but GFS continues to be the pick of the bunch for summer fans.
Shows that yet again there is much model volatility and next week's weather is still very much up in the air at the moment.

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Ouch ecm goes from hero to zero this morning awful run, models all over th place at the moment . Next week impossible  to call at this stage, hopefully ecm ensembles are more kind later.

 

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Finally, some support for my idea that next week might not quite be so rosy after all, as much as I would like it to be as you may well have noticed if you have read any of my other posts over on the moaning thread. I might not have read everything single thing which is on these threads but from what I have read, a lot of those assumptions about the BBC playing catchup appears to be based on various recent predictions from the GFS, although I may well be wrong on that front and I will apologise in advance if I am.

I will add though that I'm not aware of the BBC even using the GFS as the basis of their forecasts which is actually an American model anyway (its long-term cousing being the CFS). I know that the BBC is expected to move away from using the Met Office for their forecasts though (unlike other TV companies such as ITV and Channel 5 which have just renewed their contract with the Met Office), if they haven't done so already. For long-term forecasting such as for a coming season, the Met Office has its own forecast model,known as GloSea5.

For its shorter term forecasts though such as what we see on TV, I know that the Met Office uses the ECMWF (which is really just the European equivalent of the GFS) in its forecasts not just from what I have read on its website, but also from its own forecasts which it regularly gives out in video form both on its own website, and on its main YouTube channel in addition to providing those forecasts for the main media outlets such as the big TV companies. On that basis, if we are going to judge the performance of the BBC's forecasts and whether or not, they are a bit behind, we should therefore be basing that on the output from the ECMWF, and not from the GFS output.

One good thing which I like about Gavin P.,'s videos both on his main website (those are just embedded YouTube videos, although they can sometimes appear on his website before they actually appear on YouTube) and on his YouTube channel is that whilst we will always use the GFS for his upcoming event videos (such as for Glastonbury) and also for those forecast videos which he puts out every Wednesday and Saturday, he will always use both the GFS and ECMWF for those other videos where he discusses the outlook for the next 8 to 10 days and if he has time, he will also thrown in some output from the GEM (which is the Canadian model).

That is something which I really like because that way, we as the viewers can then get a different perspective from each of those models, thus making a bit easier for us to judge from that, what we think, might end up happening.

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it just goes to show the models are mostly unreliable and can not be trusted if they keep flipping all the time.
Are we therefore now in for a sustained period of cool and cloudy/rain conditions for the foreseeable future?

If anything the GFS has been the most reliable and consistent model so far this summer and so I'm not yet unduly worried by the ECM backtrack.
I think as usual a blend of the big three wi be most likely so warm and potentially thundery IMO.

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As I recall, a few consecutive ECM op runs prior to the two from yesterday didn't look great for a return to warmer and more settled weather any time in the near future, so as has been noted above I think that prospects for next week and beyond are up in the air to a degree just now.

I have heard it said by some in the past that forecasting the weather a few days or so in advance at this time of year can be more tricky than in the winter, and maybe there is some truth in that given the atlantic, under normal circumstances, is quieter at this time of year.

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That is why it is good to have people like Dr. Simon Keeling around. The art of a good forecaster is to be able to have a fairly rigid view of what he/she thinks will happen, which also takes all of the flip-flopping of the models into consideration. That is what the likes of Dr. Simon Keeling does really well because in his various musings over on weatherweb.net, he will quite often tell us that he is sticking rigidly to what we thinks will happen, regardless of the various swings and flip-flopping from the various models which might be happening at that time.

Of course, that doesn't necessarily that he will never change those views on what might happen, but it will usually always take quite a drastic change in circumstance based on unexpected events, for that to happen.

 

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The Beeb said yesterday that early July is looking particularly unsettled , the battle of the models continues

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 Yes , Simon Keeling is very good, have used him for private forecasts in the past and he is highly rated by farmers looking for a forecast for a precise location.

Looking at the SLP ensemble data there appears to be quite a large spread so it could go either way I guess. Further south I think is more favoured for the warmer more settled conditions (and possibly warm unsettled conditions). The ECM will be interesting this evening.

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The further S and W the better at day 5 if the ECM is to be believed.  Though far from settled, to be honest.

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My gut feeling is that the low pressure/Atlantic driven output outlook will win this battle but this is based on how I see the weather patterns moving forward. Today in London was one of the coolest I have ever experienced for many years with at least 3 more days of cool NE winds and cloud forecast for Fulham in west London. Totally depressing.....

I must admit the models appeared to have back tracked quite significantly from yesterday's stellar summer charts, but I'm not too surprised, and I'm also not that concerned at the moment.

The BBC medium ranger hinted it would take a while to get out of the changeable conditions, and the charts are just an indication of that at the moment.

I am more encouraged by the Met Office LRF which still appears to be quite bullish about July as a whole.

A few days ago, this unsettled spell was modelled to be very long-lasting. I still don't think that will be the case, and in fact next week in the south may be reasonably pleasant.

Changeable sums it up, and not too cold either.

All in all, typical summer fayre, with hopes of an improvement in the 7-10 day period.

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The MetO medium range updates have been pretty consistent about a general improvement as we go through July for the last couple of weeks according to my recollection, so whatever signal they are seeing must be, if nothing else, fairly consistent at the moment.

In fact, I think they were talking about an improvement in July even before the recent hot spell, so hopefully they are onto something with this Kieren.

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The GEFS ensemble pack can be described as utterly bland.

Standard UK summer gripe would be my interpretation.

Quite disappointing.