Nouska

No, as the height anomaly has been present prior to development. The recent anomalous north westerlies will be reinforcing the colder ssts in that they delay/prevent normal summer warming out.

A look at the JJA Z500 anomalies for the climate segments mentioned by Reef show a very stark contrast. '95-'06 '07-'15 The first image suggests an easterly drift with cloudier mornings giving way to sunny afternoons and probably a good deal more sunshine than that in the west. The recent chart for 2007 to 2015 shows an anomalous cold upper airmass which will be very cloudy during the daytime due to convective infill. You probably get temperatures that are not hugely different but what people see with their eyes will be enormously different.

The 192 hour mean does not look like there is much scope for improvement. H500 spread T850 MSLP spread at +360 hours - hope that is not indicative of the green blobby shown on the GFS in low-res.

Looks like there's been a very small LLC well ahead of the main convection due to shear. Convection building over again according to those more in tune with these things. Plane descending into the storm now - hopefully no more technical issues this time. Levi Cowan running obs from the mission. http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/recon/

They've Brexited to France! Like a horror movie set here - even have to fight through webs getting in the car. Hardly seen a wasp or a hornet this year. Early nests probably got flooded out; even the ants were scurrying around carrying their eggs to escape the rising water table.

You'll be doing some head scratching in the next few days and beyond. UKMO were first to suggest this sub-tropical hybrid forming from a piece of vorticity leaving the Carolina coast and merging with low heights in the Atlantic. The fact they are all showing a form of this now may be stronger possibility. Just shows why longer range output is no guidance at this point of the year. Talking of curve balls - the FIM will be raising a few eyebrows. One of those occasions where theta E charts tell a better story.

The 00Z mean was not good either, closer to the 12Z run - waiting for the afternoon run to update. Looking at the EC32, second week of August has a positive temp anomaly but I'm taken by the huge precip anomaly (week three) for the western Med area. Is that suggestive of a jet stream well south? Edit to add the 12Z mean at +288 hours - not as bad as the 240 hour chart indicates and flattens out completely by the end of the run.

UKMO the only model to show something more organised by day seven, into Mexico but is it 96 or 97 - cannot work it out. Is that a suggestion of energy coming off the CONUS and developing home grown near Carolinas coast? http://ruc.noaa.gov/hfip/tcgen/

A saviour in snot - well, I never! A new antibiotic was right under our noses — or rather, in them. Produced by a bacterium living in the human nose, the molecule kills the potentially deadly methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in mice and rats. Staphylococcus aureus resides in the noses of 1 in 3 people without causing a problem. MRSA — an S. aureus strain resistant to many antibiotics — is found in 2 in 100. In a small percentage of cases, the bacterium escapes to the bloodstream, causing infection. MRSA kills 11,000 people annually in the United States alone. The potential new soldier in the fight against MRSA is a molecule called lugdunin produced by the bacterium Staphylococcus lugdunensis, report Andreas Peschel and colleagues at the University of Tübingen, Germany, on 27 July in Nature. http://www.nature.com/news/the-nose-knows-how-to-kill-mrsa-1.20339

Nice GOES image of Frank. http://www.meteofrance.com/accueil

"Life's like a box of chocolates ......." - to borrow from another thread. Anyway, nice power point presentation of current solar research on winter patterns in the NH. http://lasp.colorado.edu/media/projects/SORCE/meetings/2015/presentations/Session 2/d_Mursula_SORCE_talk_Public.pdf

I prefer to look at the Ap data rather than number of sunspots - recent research indicates the magnetic activity is more likely to be an influence. Last year was the most active in that respect since minimum. This year is not so different to the early part of last year - if it continues to fall, maybe more interest later in the year. ftp://ftp.gfz-potsdam.de/pub/home/obs/kp-ap/ap_monyr.ave http://www.gfz-potsdam.de/sektion/erdmagnetfeld/daten-produkte-dienste/kp-index/

Some pics from this afternoon's storm - very intense rainfall and some amazing CG lightning but couldn't capture it. ' -

You can get projected soundings for different parts of the UK on Meteociel - just look for the sondages from GFS, WRF, AROME or ARPEGE. ARP gives UK wide view for clicking on location. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/sondage_arpege.php?region=uk&ech=3&mode=2&wrf=0 Choose petit emagramme to give a clearer view. 12Z run sounding for London.

A recognition of the physiological effects of recent poor summers. Now we just need them to highlight the psychological effects as well. An edit with regard to Evening Thunders point about the quoted "cool summers". The focus should have been on cloudier summers - that is where the problem lies.

The WAFC CB charts kind of back up Roger's thoughts. http://brunnur.vedur.is/kort/wafc/2016/07/19/12/wafc_hnat_cb-extent_base_top.html

I'm guessing the MO had some ensemble members showing this as it was mentioned as an outside possibilty in their longer range forecasts. This ECM EPSgram (Oxford) from ten days ago shows the heatwave as an extreme outlier - I suspect other in house models showed similar but set against the background signals was not favoured option and in any case, was dropped for the next few days.

It depends on what you are looking at but Knocker is not wrong when you look at the mean and individual ensemble members. The op is good but it is only one run. 144 216 A snapshot at 144 hours and 216 hours. http://www.meteociel.fr/cartes_obs/gens_panel.php?modele=0&mode=3&ech=216 An edit following Karl's post - the bottom right charts are the op - more correctly called deterministic.

AROME zoom showing the London heat island well - 30C max tomorrow can surely be well beaten in the following couple of days. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/aromezoom.php

I haven't seen the forecast charts as the European site only updates the Thursday run - it was looking awful for the first week of August - a strong cool signal for four weeks out. I think @knocker mentioned an improvement on todays run, let's hope so. Just for interest, the T2m EPSgram (red control, no deterministic) for Oxford from that very warm ECM run that fooled us all - such a pity we do not get to see these in real time as it would bring a bit more perspective.

For non weather geeks, it's not really a case of statistics about whether it is dry or wet but more a case of what the 'sensible' weather is. That's what we see and feel in real terms - the seeing bit is the important one here - we are seeing a severe depletion of the bright light of the sun. This article on SAD explains in simple terms how it affects us so much more than it did in the past. http://www.sad.org.uk/ This year has been exceptionally cloudy in the north of France, many records broken with less than 50% of sunshine in total for June. I can imagine the percentages are not so dramatic in the cloudier climate of Britain but it does not negate the health and wellbeing impacts of year round lack of light.

Here's the run for you to have a look. http://www.meteociel.fr/modeles/arpege.php?ech=3&mode=1&map=330 Edit for question: Still so much chopping and changing at 96 hours - anyone shed some light on the aspect that is causing all the difficulties in the modelling at such short range?

The French models have updated and looking very nice for Saturday afternoon - they also show a very narrow band of possible precip moving south during the afternoon - but so faint and narrow, not likely to disturb sunbathing plans, if you are lucky to findcloud free conditions.

It wouldn't surprise me to hear that doctors are seeing an increase in non specific complaints of tiredness and generally feeling 'under the weather'. It's an old saying but has much truth in it as new science points to - how many will get habit forming pills rather than the light they desperately need.