Early August ThoughtsAdded : Sunday at 15:00 The weekend weather has come as a breath of fresh air (literally) to many areas with the recent hot conditions having been pushed out of the way by Atlantic low pressure systems and their associated cooler air masses.
In fact, on the face of it, it could be argued that today's synoptic chart is rather autumnal in nature:
A deep Atlantic low to the northwest of the country with a secondary feature bringing rain and blustery winds across many parts of England and Wales. You could be forgiven for thinking that, following the fine weather so many of us have seen in the last three or four months, then the summery weather could be finished.
However, this more changeable weather is set to be relatively short-lived as high pressure looks set to build in from the southwest as we go through the coming week:
It will be a rather slow process though, especially for the northwest where that Icelandic low will continue to lurk. However, by the end of the week there is reasonably good agreement on high pressure taking over once again:
As we saw in yesterday's discussion, there are still some differences in the output over where exactly the high will be centred and this will have an impact as to how warm it gets, but currently the favoured outcome is for high pressure to be ridging in from the west which would keep most of the hot air to the south of the country. However, subtle changes could soon lead to a very different (and hotter) outcome.
For looking a bit further into August and the jet-stream charts can be a useful indicator. For this weekend it is probably no surprise to hear how the jet stream has fired up to allow the changeable weather back in across the country:
By the end of the coming week the jet stream is shown to weaken again which would explain the return of high pressure:
So after this weekend's "blip" in the weather, summer does look set to return as we head into the first part of August with temperatures creeping back up, but as is so often the case, the south and east will see the warmest and driest conditions with the north and west always at risk of seeing some rain or showers moving in off the North Atlantic.
METEOROLOGIST: BARBER |