seb

Yep not sure where anyone sees rain.

The MetO has no authority to issue a heat emergency. It’s the UKHSA that issues them following Cobra meetings with input from the MetO and a number of others. But yes they would not issue the emergency until closer to the event. The MetO extreme heat warning already kicks into gear a huge amount of action.

I know we all like interpreting models but maybe let’s just give the professionals a bit of credit. The extreme heat warning has been extended to midnight Monday.

Agreed. Regarding the extreme heat warning, it may seem "too early" but these warnings don't work like other severe weather warnings for the simple reason that preparatory work in government, health services, electricity and transport networks significantly exceeds anything required for other types of severe weather. 24-36 hours of extreme heat have a very, very different impact than 3 hours of hurricane force winds or flooding. That's particularly the case with health services (cancellations of routine appointments and non-urgent surgeries etc.), elderly care and transport networks. In an extreme case (prolonged high temperatures) it also affects power supplies with scheduled blackouts and/or alternative sourcing of electricity necessary (due to issues at nuclear plants with cooling and worst case no wind generated energy in addition). A heat emergency (level 4 on the heat health alerts system) triggers the largest amount of prep work out of all severe weather events.

I stand corrected. The SW had the first ever amber extreme heat warning in July 2021 as you say. Heat warnings were added in June 2021. Completely missed that. Still, this one is one step from red which last year's wasn't so confidence must be high... especially a week out.

Well we have the first amber warning for extreme heat in history….

Please don't treat GFS precip charts as gospel, especially not snapshot ones. Of course, the <1.5mm shown for the extreme SE (I include parts of Essex in this) are most likely going to do what has happened for the past 12 weeks... disappear to nothing. Even if 1.5mm would fall, it would evaporate before it does any good for anything. The ground is dry down to around 35cm.

No rain southeast of Bath unless of course you want to take a GFS precip chart showing 5mm accumulated rain by the end of its run as gospel.

My goodness. What are all these overreactions about? As I said a few days ago, I’m sorry for the NW but there was never a sign of more than a few days of summer weather let alone a heatwave. The rest of the country, steady as you were. That includes no rain on any model for central and eastern Southern parts for the foreseeable future (i.e. not even in FI range).

I know the West/NW has not enjoyed proper summer weather but whether we have 22, 25 or 30 degrees down here, one thing is sure - it’s the driest I can remember. Perfect summer weather for the last 6-8 weeks but we have a problem. Apart from 2 hours of very light rain last Wednesday night we’ve had nothing and there is nothing coming up as far as models go. Just look at this picture I took yesterday. It looks like Spain or California.

Agreed. At the start of the week it was apparently guaranteed that yesterday, today and tomorrow would be autumn-like throughout the country with copious amounts of rain. We have not had a drop. It’s sunny with a nice breeze and temps will get to around 23 degrees. Could not wish for more (although we do need rain). The past 5 days have been similar with some days actually reaching 27 degrees. The next 10 days look similar with some days reaching >25 degrees again. No rain in sight other than maybe Thursday which will probably disappear once again. Overall trend is increasing temps.

Who would have thought?! The weekend washout reduced to a blip in most of the southern half of the UK (away from Wales) and the infinite trough bang over the UK sits to the West next week resulting in hardly any precipitation in the entire Eastern half of the country and temps in the SE are likely to exceed 25 degrees from Wednesday (i.e. well into the mid 20s).

Lol yes, shall we? But I have said from the very first post today that I am talking about the southern half of the country, away from Wales. So really, we agree

At no point does either the GFS nor the ECM show more rain between Monday and Friday next week than had been shown for the last three days… and we had barely any. The mean on both has the temp around 22 from Tuesday. That is higher than what either model predicted for today so adding the widely accepted 1-2 degrees for both models’ underestimate and we are in the mid 20s. I really don’t get the argument.

But the models are not showing no change for the foreseeable future after the weekend. Both the ECM and the GFS have temps recovering quickly to the mid twenties and negligible precipitation away from the NW. The scatter of the individual ensembles is wider than for this week but we both know that this is always the case for >T+6. Pointing that out does not mean there is nothing to discuss.

For two days (next weekend), if it comes off, not “beyond this” (i.e. from Friday for the foreseeable future) as stated in the post I responded to. And that is summed up perfectly in the MetO mid range forecast. A generally unsettled start to the period as a band of potentially heavy rain continues to move east across the UK on Saturday. This is followed by sunny spells and showers, some heavy and possibly thundery. Sunny spells and showers, the latter being most frequent in the north, continue to dominate into the start of next week. It may be rather windy at times, especially in the north and west. Near normal or rather cool temperatures are expected. Further into the period, showers are likely to continue, being most prevalent initially in the north and west, and later in the north and east. Southern parts will probably see more in the way of dry weather. Conditions look to become more settled by the start of July as high pressure builds.

No but I think we can all agree not to state something with certainty if it is 6 days away, even if two models agree. We don’t have access to many things which the pros do so applying some historic knowledge and also taking the MetO mid range forecast into consideration, and dare I say, even some of the automated apps that show 14 days (none of which show any cool washout conditions after Sunday) is helpful when looking at what we have access to.

Of course there’s plenty of data, even just looking at the clustering of the different ensembles. Other than Saturday and Sunday being similar to yesterday there is nothing coming close to any agreement on “Beyond this - low pressure really taking over, with cooler conditions and potential for heavy rain”. Even on the mean of both GFS and ECM, precipitation in the south is negligible apart from Saturday and temps never fall below 20. In fact, apart from Saturday and possibly Sunday they nicely hover in the mid 20s. Of course, as per my earlier post, based on history (not just this last weekend), any trough at >T+6 is almost always overstated during setups where heat is firmly established over Western Europe, more so when it’s also in place in the western half of Central Europe. Again, if we would have taken models (including NOAA anomalies) as presented last Monday as gospel, then right now I’d look out on rain and 18 degrees. Instead we have lovely summer weather.

Not much different to what we were presented with this time last week for now, is it? Especially the infamous trough bang on or next to the UK... The fact that both ECM and GFS ensemble means have temps back to the mid 20s by Wednesday (for the southern half, away from Wales at least) after two days of <20 degrees points to exactly what I said in my earlier post; whatever happens at the end of the week and over the weekend, if it does, is most likely going to turn into another blip. 2-3 days of more typical UK summer weather.

Just as it happens almost always in the current setup and at this range, most of what is shown will weaken and all but disappear. Even at this time range there’s plenty of data which disagrees with your preferred(?) outcome.

Simplify it. Instead of using amber where confidence is low but the severity/impact is high a “red weather watch” is issued. On the map the areas affected are shown with a light red or red hashed line. The colours are fine as they are, the confusing part is that the next lower level is issued where confidence is too low to go for the appropriate colour. A great example is thunderstorms. How many times have we had yellow warnings which state storms are likely to be severe, they then turn out to be severe but the warning itself stays yellow because “it is difficult to predict where storms occur”. If an amber watch is issued two days in advance people know to be aware, once the areas affected and confidence are sufficiently high then an amber warning is issued at short notice. Obviously this is similar to the US but also a number of European countries and I think it works better and is much easier to understand.

A few of us said yesterday that the SE needs watching based on SW wind speeds trending down in most models while in the SE they were increasing. I think we got that spot on albeit no gusts higher than 90mph apart from a few exposed locations. It was definitely the worst around here for decades (the damage in Kent and Essex is proof of that) and in the end the Met Office got it right despite all the criticism. Speeds were very similar across the South and when the red warning for the SW was issued confidence for the SE was still a bit lower (the increase had only been shown since yesterday morning). The red for the SE was issued with more than enough time to keep people indoors. Does the warning system need to be simplified, I think so but in the end the message got out regardless and despite a very pathetic performance of the BBC. ITV and especially GMB’s Laura did an amazing job.

The entire Southeastern network has now been shut down.

Wow. Not experienced anything like this since the early 90s when living in Germany. Powercuts are something else

Really strong gusts already here and nothing in any models showing any weakening of the peak later