mushymanrob

what? i have no idea what you are looking at! as ever, people are looking at 1 run and believe it will verify in full.... IT WONT! especially beyond day 5. the overall developing picture is one of serious high pressure dominance and at this time of the year, it means HEAT. i totally agree with the poster who said "who cares whether its 30c and sunny or 25c and sunny ".... its HOT! and dry. just how hot and who will get which temps are still to be determined. for some of us this will be the best summer spell for 5 years, and possibly 12 years. id be shocked if this will be the only one we get too, although its possible, but theres no sign at all of a pattern change away from some sort of high pressure dominance. i fully expect that after next weeks hot spell fizzles out, possibly by early july, there will be an even greater, longer lasting one, because that sort of pattern is how great hot summers have unfolded in the past. john is right about water issues too, there will soon be requests to cut down on water use and hosepipe bans will start to be introduced. there are c10 more weeks of high summer to get through and IF theres no major pattern change, water will start to become short. the outlook is warm/very warm/hot and mainly dry (outside any thundery outbreaks). at long last.

depends what your idea of a 'proper' winter is..

nope, dont be silly, neither has anyone else here. but even so, you would aclimatise , because there ARE people living in extreme heat in the world.

i sometimes wonder if people have short memories of have never lived through a 'long hot summer'. you get used to it... hot becomes the norm, pretty much like cold is every winter (normal cold) . i dunno, i always feel the first cold of winter far more then later cold. ive felt that with summer warmth too.. one things certain....moaning about it wont change a damn thing! lol. ps i worked outdoors through the long hot summers of 75, 76, 83, 89, 90, 95, 03... etc.

what john said was spot on.... thats what those charts were showing what you said was spot on... those charts didnt predict a 5 day heatwave 14 days in advance. that doesnt make them wrong, it means they were uncertain and only jumped on board, so to speak, when it was more likely. to me its not about who spots what first, but who spots it correctly first personally, i expected this sudden change and said so on my daily local blog. because when you follow these charts you get used to how they act, and they can be behind the ops sometimes, this was one time. but overall they do iron out the more bullish, fanciful, fantasy island paths the ops take at the timeframe they refer too. they work for me, as they do very much nearly all the time get the mean upper flow bang on. but as john said, they are falible, as all model suits are. tbh theres so many ways of trying to untangle whats likely we all have our favoured methods. im a huge fan of this way, because they do iron out the vagaries of the ops.

i disagree about no suggestion of any high pressure building. there has been a gradual build of pressure for a while now, but not strong enough to develop a large pressure build. i actually mentioned this some time ago. the anomaly charts rarely send you up the garden path, and whilst the gfs can sometimes spot a change before the anomaly charts do, like this time, its fi predictions are proven inaccurate time and time again. its extremely rare for a large pattern change within 6 days to occur without the noaa charts picking up on this. so i for one will carry on viewing them first, then ill see which op run is closest, that way is the best way of discovering the most likely pattern we will get in the 6-14 day period. no garden paths, no false hope, just reality.

the fritillary is i believe a 'dark green fratillary' ... very nice!

good news too from the noaa anomaly charts which support pressure gradually ridging in off the displacing azores high. however i dont think they support (yet at least) some of the ecm's stronger builds as we keep a (slacker) flow from the westerly quardant. interestingly theres hints of pressure dropping over biscay. so a plume event later next week is a possibility with temps soaring along with humidity. but thats dependent on the expected ridging continuing its slow easterly track. http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/500mb.php its also looking dry, very dry in fact after wednesday. at this rate ill be seeing brown lawns for the first time in 12 years.

comma butterfly catterpillar

noaa anomaly charts dont support any pattern change either way, retaining the brisk upper westerly which will prevent anything other then transitory ridging. but with positive heights across most of southern uk theres no great problem with rain, in fact the rather dry theme looks set to continue for some time away from the northwest. a lot of pleasant summery weather then, with the warmest/sunniest in the south/southeast.

youre forgetting a lot of eastern areas didnt get a 'glorious' may, a lot of us away from the west was plagued by cloud.

i wouldnt worry, the anomaly charts dont suggest much troughing (over us) over the next 2 weeks as pressure is predicted to be on the +ive side of neutral. a lot of fairly decent 'normal' summers weather to see june out, mainly dry too away from the northern half of the country. theres no washout , nor any heatwave, just a lot of pleasant warm dry summery weather. cant be bad, unless youre in the northern half of the uk of course.

nowt here in derby on monday night, but someone saw them in tamworth, which is south of derby... i reckon i live in a nocticlucent shadow..

yes, the anoms appear to be suggesting the azores high becoming a much more influential player, ridging closer, and providing a lot of fine summery weather for the south at least, with the worst conditions as usual in the northwest. maybe no heatwave just yet, but a lot of pleasant weather in between weakening systems . looking pretty dry to for most of us away from the northwest. itll be interesting to watch this evolution further, will the azh sit to our west? or will it displace or give birth to a seperate ridge that will bring some heat?.. either way the outlook isnt bad away from the northwest and pretty promising id have thought.

worst, or best? lol imho we havnt had many real good thunderstorms in the last 45 years. ok, there are exceptions, but these have been largely localised affairs with single cell storms. in the 60's and early 70's , i first recorded storms, as they followed a pattern. they would come up from france, in a line. we would get a southeasterly, it would be rather cloudy/bright. the southwest would turn dark first, as these storms came at an angle, so west of where i was (breaston, between derby notts) would look like getting it first. then upwind of us would get dark, and it departed to our east last. there was always an area of updraft, where black clouds billowed spectacularly before the base of the cloud - dark grey and misty arrived. and thats where the thunder and lightning was. afterwards, the sun came out! no 4 days of grey gloom that we seem to get now. the thunder and lightning was intense though, real violent cracks, forked lightning too, hail stones sometimes quite big. these storms hit everyone, they came in lines, they always provided , and were totally unlike todays fart fest of a thunderstorm...in fact most of todays activities i wouldnt even honour it by calling it a 'storm'. although i remember them back to 1966, the first one i recorded, rudimentarily was actually exactly 48 years ago today! although im not so sure it was up from france as it was before i recorded charts. other very noteable storms that followed described habit 1/8/72 (or 31/7/72 - not sure, no longer have records) 24/6/73 extremely violent thunderstorm 15/9/73 classic as described after a very hot muggy bright day. worth noting too that 9/7/81 south derby had a cloudburst, in a violent but local storm. we had 3" of rain in an hour, leaving flooding everywhere. but that was localised and from the west.

nope... links still there...

lets see now

nope.... see, the problem i have is that after uploading a pic, any further text also links to the image , underlined... what am i doing wrong?

lets see... if the link is seperate.

wet. dull and wet here in derby.

i guess im clutching at straws, but doesnt the 8-14 day chart suggest the azh shifting a bit further eastward with slight pressure rise to our south and indeed across the uk in comparison to the 6-10 day chart? so maybe not quite as unsettled ?. (or wet lol)

sick to death of this bloody north sea cloud.... but at least its dry...

it was Johns observations on these charts several years ago that 'converted' me to them (as highlighted in the post above). the noaa ones in particular. if you really want to know whats most likely to happen, then these charts are the best. they dont vary as much as the ops which might make them a bit boring for some people. but if you get the upper flow right, then the surface conditions are easier to get right too ... no?.. well it works for me most of the time, viewing those will point you to which of the op runs are most likely to be nearer the mark. but of course if you enjoy the variability of the ops, and like being led up the garden path sometimes, then thats fine lol. as for it 'not happening yet' , true, but when the noaa anomaly charts have been consistent and other model suits have been slow to fall in line, before eventually agreeing, i for one will not place any monies on this outcome being inaccurate! much as i do not want it, a period of low pressure dominance in some form (detail to be resolved) for next week is now pretty likely imho, unless these charts change, which sadly, is unlikely.

thats true.... but we still didnt get the heatwave did we, so whilst my interpretation of them wasnt correct, the conditions we got WERE. interestingly though.... all models now agree with what the noaa's had been predicting for 3 days. the ecm, the gfs, the ecm/gfs anomalies. the noaa's have yet again been proven to be the better model for this timeframe.

thats 3 consecutive runs now these charts have suggested troughing over the uk for the 6-14 days period. that must be concerning knowing their accuracy when consistent, and would suggest the gfs 06z will be closer to the mark then other runs that suggest ridging ....... unfortunately http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/500mb.php