William of Walworth

I agree with NSSC too. Apologies White Xmas for getting over irritated, I should have confined my annoyance to the mainstream media alone. I *do* think one or two posters (generally) in this thread weren't distinguishing clearly enough between the MetO forecasters and the MetO Press Office. NSSC clarifies the point admirably though, perhaps their Press Office has now learnt their lesson having had their hands bitten this summer by the sharks of the mainstream media. And a lot of people out there take their generalised and ignorant annoyance at 'no nothing forecasters' from the lying no nothing media ..... hence my annoyance. My apologies here where due though, White Xmas included.

The SE bias of most of the media hasn't stopped them giving the Met Office loads of stick. On the basis of them seeing their (the media's) own earlier spin and ultraexaggeration of the Met Office Press Office's original 'barbecue summer' PRESS STATEMENT being 'contradicted' The Met Office's recent statement (this week) was much more bland, but has still been spun and distorted to kingdom come by papers like the Telegraph etc. By far the worst spin doctors work for the mainstream media ..... The Met Office's original medium term summer forecast was not in itself so far wrong -- this never mentioned the words 'barbecue summer' in the forecast itself. Weather eater knows the score, as does Nick Davies -- everyone should read his book. Stop blaming the Met Office's forecasters for the faults of the Met Office's Press Office and the even worse faults of the mainstream media. I'm looking at you White Xmas, and others .....

GMCA is absolutely spot on, as weather eater correctly acknowledges ... You've been reading Nick Davies haven't you weather eater? Nice one. More media awareness please folks. Some of you are still talking about 'they' and 'them' as if it's the Met Ofice's proper meteorologists who are at fault. They aren't. It's their press office. This latest media spin distorting the MetO's fairly bland statement is as GMCA explains .... nothing too wrong with the bare statement from the MetO in itself. Bad precedent based forecasting I'd say. There's every chance (or at least an equal chance) that next summer will be completely different, with anticyclonic influence far more to the forefront. Thats not just hopecasting by me (OK it is a BIT ), it's also just simple balance of possibilities. Writers off of summer 2010 just STOP IT!

How was my summer? Under settled and over Atlanticised and far too Southerly Tracking Jet dominated (here in West Wales). Insufficiently anticyclonic. In July, far too wet and chilly as well.

I wasn't getting this from my readings this morning, but am I missing late changes towards a finer weekend in the S than predicted earlier on? <prays> However the Met Office's latest update to their written forecast shows nothing like any similar optimism ... Met Office site : Outlook for Wednesday to Friday: [south West] Further rain later on Wednesday, becoming heavy at times. Showers or rain on Thursday and Friday with some drier and brighter spells. Fresher feeling westerly breezes developing. Updated: 1522 on Mon 17 Aug 2009 UK Outlook for Saturday 22 Aug 2009 to Monday 31 Aug 2009: [uK General] : Rather cloudy on Saturday across the UK with showers or spells of rain, these occasionally heavy. Drier spells in the southeast at first. On Sunday drier, brighter and warmer weather for a time in the east, before further rain is forecast to spread across western areas and then to eastern areas during the evening, overnight and into Monday. The northwest / southeast split looks as though it will continue through the week with locally warm, brighter periods in the southeast and further periods of rain in the north and west. A similar trend looks as though it will continue in the following weekend and for Monday with the best of the weather in the southeast and wetter conditions in the northwest. Updated: 1228 on Mon 17 Aug 2009

Several are getting very interested in the remnants of hurricanes for the week starting 24th August, can I be one of the few that hopes that nothing nearly so melodramatic comes off as shown in those extreme-Low FI charts for around the 25-27??? I'm not in the slightest bit interested in gales and deep lows in August for heavens sake!! ... and STRONGLY hope we don't get them. Is there no-one hoping that we might get some half decent weather for Bank Holiday weekend? Like some of you, I suspect reality will be far more mundane when it finally happens next week, but it really does seem that unsettled is fated to be our constant theme. Right now I'm focussed on the coming weekend, 21-23 August, and my best hopes for the far SW (Devon) look like a matter of avoiding too much rain, anything better than that doesn't seem too likely that far West on current models.

Just seen the Country Tracks forecast on BBC. At the end of the week, it'll ALL be about exactly where that incoming Low positions itself. I think many will be willing that it tracks further North..

I'm still stubbornly clinging to hope that there'll still be enough twists and turns this week for next weekend in Devon not to be a washout, but there's certainly some worrying signs on that right now .... Why can't the far SW benefit from being in the S and not suffer from being in the W? Utterly frustrating ....

Happy birthday to me on the 25th, if that comes off ... . Even at my most pessimistic I don't for a moment think it will, though.

So many possibilities! All I selfishly care about is how the weather in Devon will look Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd .... Monitoring, but daren't commit myself to any firm prediction ....

If this happens, and obviously it would be a big if, then current talk just above of an E/W divide might end up being replaced by talk of a N/S one! Latter would suit us very much for our Devon based w/e 21-23 August. More waiting to see what transpires though ...

Tease or trend? We can but wait for further runs. Trying hard not to be too recklessly optimistic right now. There could be real grounds for hope though at least for more Southern parts ..... so long as these signs get consolidated ....

Well I'm in West Wales (Swansea) and heading for Devon early on Friday 21st for our last summer excursion (the fate-temptingly named 'Beautiful Days' festival -- and farcically so named the same weekend last year!). As you can guess I'm hoping the current UkMO modelling is the winner, GFS would be acceptable as well. But for us it's all about whether any driness/warmth in the South lasts right through til the 23rd and 24th, obviously this far out there's still considerable doubt about that. I do feel sorry for anyone up in North Western parts though -- we had it pretty bad in most of Wales in July and for now the worst seems to be concentrating on areas somewhat further North.

One can but hope x 2

It is HUGELY open to debate (and in a different thread, too!!) to suggest that we are set for a recurring pattern in future years of wetter summers (I think the 80s winters thing -- you mean colder? -- is open to question as a pattern too). Call me bad news resistent, but I refuse to accept as a given that three poor (or at best average) summers -- 2007, 2008 and 2009 -- mean that we are locked into similar summers for the foreseeable few years. Wouldn't take much shifts in the detail for 2010 to turn out a prolonged warm dry and summery one for the UK. NO-ONE on here can rule this out .... At least as plausible is the idea that current patterns are highly volatile and unpredictable and changeable. Leaving the windows of possibilitie sopen that next summer could end up very different. As rightly said by someone above, we are still very unclear beyond the next few days even .... Death to inevitablist doomsayers say I!

This chart for next Friday (21st) is presumably both an outlier and out of date by now -- as well as being in FI! -- but as we'll be in the SW (Devon) next week, we could do a lot worse if that or something like it came off .... my best hopes would lie with a N/S divide .... Not completely without hope of avoiding a SW washout next weekend anyway .... but there'll be plenty more twists and turns to come no doubt.

Well I'm going to have to employ my 'sit back and wait for a few days in the faint hope that prospects improve in time for late next week' It's as good as any other response when current runs are so indifferent to poor. And rationally speaking as well, there's still enough time for an upturn by the w/e of the 21-23. The same amount of time ahead of the weekend just gone, signs for the summery weekend that we've had were still far less clear at that point ..... Come on FI! Pop up with some candy .....

Latest from the Met Office (just checked their written forecast this time, not synoptics) seems pretty pessimistic and unsettled for everywhere (outside the SE) throughout next week and into next weekend. Any hopes of this altering, people?

Even more uncertainty than normal it seems, for what's going to happen after the weekend and next week. I couldn't begin to guess right now what our chances are of some more pleasantness for the w/e of the 21/23 -- my current selfish point of interest. I suppose it's always too soon to say that far ahead, but if GP and chion are both in an uncertain mood then I guess the non experts will be even less willing to take a punt ....

Only yesterday members here were looking at Thursday being the best and sunniest day of the week for most areas. Look at Monday's Netweather forecast too and how different to that prospects look now. Just underlines the point about how rapidly and radically day to day forecasts/models are changing. By being cautious about that, we should avoid looking with any confidence beyond the weekend or even (some would say) beyond 96 hours! I've not given up hope of a modest return of summer for some, along the lines of the weekend just gone, for a short time at least. My personal prayers are for the w/e of 21-23 August .... our last festival venture away this summer (in Devon). I'd settle for 22C, sunshine, and dry.

I know Frosty is summarising the latest signals correctly as they stand now, and they do it has to be said look mostly dire for those dreaming of more summery conditions. That said, there have been plenty of alterations to detail and positioning over the last few days. Admittedly almost always in a more negative direction for summer lovers -- the near complete disappearance of last week's High Pressure dominated medium term prospects, was a big shock and frustration to me on my return here yesterday. So all we can hope for is further changes, and in a more benign direction. Always possible by the time we get to later next week (my personal period of interest!), despite GP's and chion's caution on the technicalities.

Just caught up after a beautiful weekend away in Dorset. Mistrust of any HP dominated scenario shown in FI (ie after this coming weekend) seems to be the dominant theme of several recent postings. But given that the intensity of the threatened low this weekend might as easily be downgraded as intensified the nearer to this coming Friday and Saturday we get, then predicting whether summer will or won't make a marked return next week is at this stage a mug's game .... Definitely don't write off a return of HP next week is what I say at this point ....

Prospects looking pretty good now for us in Dorset this weekend, latest GFS seems to remove any real risk of rain that far West from Thursday onwards. Significant improvements . I'd take cloudy dry and warm over sunshine and downpours, but we may get reasonable sunshine amounts at the w/e anyway. In my opinion, most of the latest signals do not support this (maybe the ensembles have yet to catch up with the synoptics?) : snowmadchrisUK : I wouldn't take any notice of the 12z gfs removing fridays heavy thundery showers .. The ensembles are having none of it .. Some of fridays precepitation ensemble members indeed go off the charts . Azores high likely after 11th but not sure how far north it can get due to constant low pressure to the north sending it all back south. and support this : Frosty09 : High Pressure features strongly on the latest 12z model runs especially across the southern half of the uk but occasionally ridging further north into scotland too. A big improvement compared to yesterday with any heavy rain not likely to be as widespread as recent runs suggested and the south east is favoured for any significant rain later this week/weekend but with a ridge extending across it should be dry and warm in most areas. BBC breakfast forecast this morning, presumably reflecting MetO output, is already downgrading rain totals ....

After about the wettest July on record, you can expect ZERO sympathy from most of us for complaining about warm and sunny now! You've had your weather for the last few weeks, not it's the turn of us summer-preferrers ....