Heat And Plume HuntAdded : Sunday at 14:00 A pretty quiet week in store with high pressure near to or over the UK bringing plenty of quiet weather and temperatures close to normal for the end of May.
As we head towards the first month of summer we always get asked when the first heatwave is coming or when the first Spanish plume bringing thundery weather will appear. However, much like winter and the risk of snow , it is usually the second half of the season that brings the greatest chances of such events and this is due to the seasonal lag.
Seasonal lag is the phenomenon whereby the date of maximum average air temperature is delayed until some time after the date of maximum insolation (the Summer Solstice). This is why August is a hotter month on average than May despite August seeing later sunrises and earlier sunsets. Equally, this is why February is often a colder month than December following the Winter Solstice.
It doesn't stop us looking though as any time from May until September can bring hot weather to our shores, just like wintry weather can occur in November or December.
At the current time we are monitoring the potential for something warmer, and perhaps more thundery, to develop around the turn of the month. This is because the main forecast models are hinting at high pressure setting up to the east which would allow a warmer feed of air to move in.
The ECMWF ► 00z run showed this:
The GEM also hinting at something warmer:
The GFS ► hinting at something similar, but with high pressure centred further north so that warmer air over Europe is slower to move in:
It does get there by day 10 on this run:
Still low confidence but a trend towards a warmer outlook is certainly there. However, you will probably notice how pressure is falling from the south on that last chart which could potentially bring the risk of some thundery weather moving up from the south. This is even lower confidence though and, as the GEM shows, the settled weather could well continue:
METEOROLOGIST: BARBER |