Woollymummy

Gorgeous peeps, everyone get up out of bed now and look, super dooper, although no damn forks and I don't know how to take a lightning picture with a bloody iPhone but it is all magic, loud and warm and many flashes, don't know which side of the house to watch from, London side winning at the moment.

Air con on two out of our four buses failed on the way back on school trip, my trusty water spray bottle cooled down grateful students. Very glad to have a cooler evening to enjoy now.

Jetstream didn't buckle as extremely as was forecast last week but still very impressive day, only made bearable by the big bottle of water I carried round the safari park, for spraying myself and my students. Superhot.

I am looking forward to those storms....

29 C in the garden, 22 C in the house :-)

Spot on forecasters! Next week maybe the change of breeze direction and rain might make me feel normal again.... I am wilting.

Guess who went to work without closing the upstairs windows first? What a daft thing to do. Curtains now drawn everywhere and downstairs is deliciously cool, I think it will be fine for sleeping if we let out the stuffy air at dusk. I envy anyone with shutters.

Am I right in thinking that it is this circle of persistent lows around the globe that are giving us and lots of other countries our heatwaves/warm summer weather this year? If you run through the animation they take a long time to move or change, is that good for heatwave fans?

Absolutely brilliant link, thank you, just what I was hoping for :-)

("it seems to me that they have succeeded in their aim of dampening down enthusiasm in this thread for what is going to be wonderful spell of summer weather if you enjoy heat and interesting conditions") I think we are still interested, but the forecast seems to be so certain that there seems little to discuss, and a lot of pre-emptive watering of gardens and making ice-cubes to be done, which is maybe taking up people's time, plus lots of normal "average " temperature summer weekend activities to be enjoyed before we all have to get hot and sweaty at work. My twopence worth is a question about the next batch of heat: is it possible to look at the lows as they form over USA and work out which are most likely to give us the next extra swirl that flicks some more heat up from Spain. Not that it really matters, I just like to know where they start from.

For years I have had quite a few random places listed on my phone Yahoo Weather app to compare weather with Oxford, including Ulan-Ude, San Francisco, Vienna, Minneapolis, Vaasa, Reykjavik, Oagadougou, etc I usually marvel at the consistently fierce hot weather forecast for Oagadougou. Well, this week, Oxford and Ouagadougou both have 34०C forecast. Too funny!

Here's a topical question: Do you keep your house doors and windows shut in a heatwave, or leave them open to get a breeze? I am contemplating how to cool my difficult-to-cool lab next week at work (without using a fan, I haven't got one), maybe putting blankets/foil over the windows? When I get home from a hot day out and find the house shut up and cool, it always seems like a good idea to leave the windows shut, but I always find it horrible not having a breeze. It is so long since I experienced proper heat . Last night the children couldn't sleep until I had opened every door and window in the house until it was dark and chilly. And we haven't even started the heatwave! What do you do?

Lots of heat around, not just for us...

At least this time round I don't have to give birth to and care for my newborn baby, 2006 was hot! Interesting to see Scotland warms up quickly on this chart, first time for ages they haven't been left out of things while we get nice warm southern weather!

Can I ask a question about the jetstream? - here are a couple of snapshots for 2nd July, one from Wednesday and one from today, and they both look very similar, does that mean the likelihood is the modeling is more reliable? I am looking forward to the extreme weather for the novelty and the thunderstorms, not so much the prospect of taking teenagers to a safari park on the hottest day of the year....

Isn't the forecast speed of the jet a contributing factor in building the heat faster than usual? A big slow high would take a longer time to push hot air north, but this has got a fast edge to it, hasn't it?

This looks fun :-) I am really not sure what the jetstream looked like last time there was a big lot of heat, as I hadn't yet started following any Netweather charts then - has anyone for any vintage charts for comparison? Not that I want to get my hopes up too much....

Lovely roasting afternoon here after warm muggy morning, now super duper rain and bits and bobs of thunder round about. Could do with a bit more lightning.

I do feel your pain WoW, (Mud photo from Metro) - let's hope some of the mud is warm :-)

Just as well Blacks outdoor supplies shop is closing down and selling off loads of thermal undies and massively warm coats, I have never felt less stupid having splurged money there yesterday than when I checked the charts tonight and considered how wretched this year is for camping, and we are going to suffer.....unless the undies and coats really turn out to be fab. I hope so.

Lovely super doo dah! just popped outside to check v still and quiet and warm, no wind, saw a big lightning flash somewhere north of us, but through cloud. Better than nothing :-)

I keep running this model through at high speed, like a nice summer bed-time story. Even if it is not going to come true, it looks fine!

Richard, if you need a place to camp down south, you are welcome, you guys up north could do with a warm break like we have had, I hope it arrives soon!

Gorgeous amazing weather at the weekend, couldn't have asked for better, ashamed to say I am sunburnt. Oops. Now, is it an odd thing to see windy weather around a UK high pressure system, and is it odd to see stormy humid weather approaching from the North East? It seems odd to me, be nice, I am still learning. The improvement in the charts makes me very excited indeed, it looks like next week could be seriously warm, yay!

Please can someone help, the anomaly charts never show anything recently, why is it never working?