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Yep. Last year grabbed some headlines with 37.8c at Heathrow on 31/7 and the hot spell in mid August.....other than that it was pretty poor. 2019 similar - overall poor barring the 38.7c at Cambridge. 2018 was just exceptionally good, and one to go in the pile with 1976/1995/2003 etc as memorable if you enjoy hot sunny weather.

We're dropping back into La Nina, so the winter ramp train will be full steam ahead in about 7 weeks when the PV turns westerly again and reaches 0.1 m/s

What's got me this summer is just the number of sunless days. We've had so many days where the sky is just 8/8 cloud cover, today being another one. A bit dpressing when you get enough days without any sun during winter.

Heaven forbid - temps up to 25c on Thursday!

We're there by Saturday. Looks like Thursday next week is the date to lock in where high pressure finally makes the breakthrough. Let's now see this stay consistent on the models over the rest of this week.

Morning folks, A lot of whether we get any improvement next week is now going to hinge on Hurricane Elsa. You can see by the latest graphics and forecasts that it is due to take the classic east coast clipper route as it weakens - but it's then going to caught up in the jet stream and fired across the Atlantic in a form. As we all know, models don't handle tropical systems particularly well, so more uncertainty than usual as regards to next week. You can see the remnants starting to appear by Saturday lunchtime on the eastern seaboard here: UKMO then whisks these out of the way up to Iceland by Tuesday: GFS and GEM also have this system but less defined, but thankfully both also send it out of the way and look pretty good by Thursday next week: Fingers crossed folks.

I think this summer has been fairly well modelled on the whole. I didn’t see anyone predicting a scorcher. I fancied an average to slightly better than normal summer leading in, and that’s very much up in the air. If the second half of July is a dud then it’ll end up on the scrap heap. CET wise June was one of the better ones, which depending on where you live you may or may not agree with!

It looks nice - but it’s stuck at day 10 again and hasn’t got any closer the last couple of days. Now looking pretty mixed to unsettled out until Wednesday, before Thursday and Friday turn drier. Temperatures fairly uninspiring for what is now the peak of summer, high teens scraping low 20s at times. We need to squeeze something decent here as august is starting to look decidedly dodgy. Nina setting back in and a massive standing wave possibly setting up and not moving all month, which usually means crappy weather for the UK.

00z clusters day 8-10 have one that builds the high more into the south, one that builds the high in more widely, and one that doesn't at all....though at day 11-15 it looks a lot better. May be one where the clusters shows aren't a great representation of what might happen, though the signal after mid month is pretty good.

Looks like we're going to have to wait a bit longer to potentially get high pressure building in. A bit like the pattern change in late May, sometimes a bit of patience is required! Direction of travel is good though. Look at Saturday - Azores high retracted and no chance of anything settled here: Fast forward to the end of next week - and finally we have a bit of movement. Trough pushing east, and the Azores high poised and ready:

Hmmmmmmm...... Not an overly convincing UKMO run today, which now develops a fully blown low rather than more of a shallow feature. Further delays on the model output for getting high pressure in properly though. Yesterday it was looking like perhaps Thursday next week, GFS now pushes this to nearly 2 weeks time: GEM not really there either by Friday:

Wouldn’t worry too much. GEM is still settled. If we get cross model agreement on one or the other it’s a different story, but at the moment nothing to cause alarm.

I think this is the classic UK summer chart that most people would think of - Azores high building in from the SW with low pressure back towards where it should be in July. We just need this trend to start pulling back to day 9/8/7/6 through this week and we should be good for settled weather around mid-month (which is what teleconnections have progged as a potential return to better conditions since the last week of June).

Think you must have the wrong charts? Certainly no 100mm or anything close on the 00z ECM run. ECM ENS starting to nose the 10c line in from the SW, which is usually a sign of an Azores high starting to flex: Two of the 3 clusters build the high in like the op run between day 8-10: Might be a case of it taking a bit longer than anticipated, but early to middle next week looks to be the sweet spot if we're going to change this pattern.

High pressure making a proper move at day 9/10 on the 6z. Doesn’t last too long, but get it here first then worry about that after!

It looks like it’s trying hard to settle down a bit, but not quite managing to. Still troughs and pesky features in the mixer which will stop us getting some nice sunny days for now.

No signs of any heat or majorly settling down just yet. At day 10 the mean is westerly, with the Azores high parked back in its natural home. Average conditions with sunshine and showers to be the order of the day once this storm clears away.

Yep, that is a 1025mb low over the SE on the ECM 144 chart, which is fairly hilarious. Such a UK chart. So despite the chart below looking like a lovely day at first glance, it’ll probably be fairly cloudy, showers and 21c max.

UKMO day 7….another upper low plonked over the UK!

Doesn’t look too bad on Saturday, probably a few showers but much better than midweek for sure!

Clusters also showing higher pressure getting ever closer in the 8-10 day range and beyond:

It’s not the best. But at least once the low clears away it’s sunshine and showers rather than a relentless washout. Still hopeful of a much better second half of July ??

Things starting to look better on the GFS/UKMO in about a weeks time, with low pressure finally lifting away by about Thursday/Friday next week.

A bit more ridging once the first week of July is done?

Next Tuesday - welcome to October