William of Walworth

In the Model Output Discussion thread though, there's a 50/50 debate going on right now about whether a dry and warm looking Continental High might build over us -- later next week. Some (but not all) of the latest models indicate this is at least a possibility in the FI zone. No dispute that rain and perhaps plenty of it is imminent for many areas in the next few days ... but we should keep a close eye on what may happen next week. Perhaps, just perhaps, the unsettled spell coming up may end up being quite shortlived .....

Thanks for those posts folks. Somewhat reassuring in these nervous times .....

Current charts as being discussed in the Model Output Discussion thread, make it very hard at the moment to predict whether or not we'll get a summery warm up even as soon as mid/late May, as far as I can tell .... As usual I enter summer with fingers nervously crossed and trying to hold rampant pessimism at bay. Updates to this thread from more knowledgeable Netweather folk welcomed ...

Those 6 were mainly concentrated in the last week of June though, making 1995 a truly excellent year as I recall for us 'festival weather specialists' ...... :lol: Forgive me if the link to the BBC's coverage of the Met Office long term forecast, and the forecast itrself, is being covered in other threads ... I'm not on this forum all that often ... ETA : Direct link to Met Office's long term forecast (updated today, 30th April). But worth linking here too I spose, for discussion/contradiction! Netweather's own long term forecast elsewhere on this site, also looks fairly encouraging ...

This is too much of a deterministic and certainty-filled post in my opinion. I'm glad to see that no-one else in this thread seems to be agreeing that we're certain to get a indifferent/average/even poor summer or that a good one is near impossible, as Daniel seems to be close to claiming Jack Wales is pessimistic, but even his predictions don't yet rule out a noticeably better summer than last year's and 2007's truly dire ones ..... Trouble is I think the two halves of your wish are likely to be incompatible, bar some exceptionally dry airstreams. If we do get extended warm/hot periods, London (especially) does risk humidity and hard to cope with heat too. I'm not living in London anymore for now, but like several on here I'm fairly desparate for a good deal more sunshine and warmth than we had last year, and some extended dry and sunny periods. If I get my way at least you'll get your chance of some pleasant countryside walks at weekends, but I reckon it'll be at the cost of some tough City conditions ...

Well the equinox is on Friday so the approach of summer brings this summer fan back to this site after a long absence. I hibernate in the winter! Does anyone else share my no doubt irrational fear of too much pleasant and sunny spring weather? This week has been gorgeous, awakening hopes of some lovely spells of HP dominated weather this summer, BUT what about the idea that too much nice weather in the spring risks 'using up our quota'? I know the 'quota theory' is made up paranoid nonsense scientifically speaking but!! One thing I remember about our mostly dreadful summers in 2007 and 2008 was that they were preceded by long spells of very pleasant weather in the spring. Arousing false hopes for later! So my preference this time would be that after the current HP spell, we get plenty of wet and indifferent weather in April and early May, then that we start to get some REALLY nice conditions building up from mid May or so onwards. Glad to read that almost no-one in this thread is writing off the summer and that no-one is suggesting that an Atlantic/Jet Stream dominated summer is inevitable. Might there not be some mileage in the idea that we're overdue an above average summer? There's nothing yet to say that there's no chance of one anyway. At the very least we have to settle for one conspicuously better than last year's ..... (Specialist PS : Oh yes, and can I please request that for the last two weeks of June we have a truly huge and immobile High Pressure area centred somewhere over Somerset? :lol: )

"Poor" was the option I voted for -- will leave 'awful' for those in Ireland, South West England, Wales, etc.

I'm still clinging to hope that 'rainy and cool August' might conceal a few regional variations, but Northern Scotland coming off driest (as in the foreecast) doesn't look hopeful for anyone further South. I'm hoping that Glacier Point's and Blast's optimism in the Model Output thread for a better month's end doesn't get downgraded. And that we use up plenty of that 180% of rain for August in the next 36 hours or few days ... get it over with! Apart from wanting a pleasant/Indian summer-like first half of September (which is at least possible, maybe likely even, even with modest temperatures) I'm pretty laid back about anything from late September onwards. Whatever gets thrown at us ...

We had a good chunk of summer in the SW, just when 177,000 needed it! Looking utterly dreadful again for the coming week/weekend, see model output thread, but I have hopes of improvements further into July. John (Holmes) is correctly pessimisitic up to about the 14th in his latest LRF, but after that ..... I'm optimistic of some more pleasantness ('averageness', even, for 'normal' summers) like the week that we've just had. 'Average' summer would include such periods, it's LAST year that stands out as cnsistently bad up to August, and I agree with Bartlett, not as bad as last year = quite good for certain stretches of time!

I know, I remember those years with fondness !! I'm a 'June Monsoon' sceptic, myself. But all this Monsoon chat tends to come out when we get a 2007 style June. We'll probably get it this week when Wednesday's and Thursday's likely deluges -- especially in the North by the look of it -- come along.

So. 'June Monsoon' and June (at least parts of it) can't avoid a Southerly tracking Jet with an Atlantic driven chain of Low Pressures queuing up to soak us. Run of bad luck based myths, or increasingly inevitable realities?

Is there ANY chance of that High moving in nearer? Not so much the end of this week (which looks unlikely) or even next week, but sometime around the 20th June?

Yeah, that was a bit ultra, but I'd take that over late June 2007! Hopefully for late June 2008, it's not humid in the countryuside!

And -- my original point -- there ARE one or two posters here who seem overpessimistic beyond -- in some cases -- what the forecasts/models justify or even tell us at all, IMO. Fair dos. Nowt wrong with variety in the summer. All in the timing though! Last year we had for most of the early summer a LACK of (much) variety -- constant series of jet driven Atlantic sytems and miserable, frequently rainy conditions. I'm happy without a 1976 (we're not going to get it anyway). 2003 would do!

I didn't really, so apols for that, but yesterday was a bad weather day like today, and a few others, not just you, were also being pessimistic (more so than today) so that affected my grumpiness level .... There is a serious point somewhere in there though -- it's profoundly annoying (generally) for people to write off the month, or eevn the whole summer, and for them to adopt a seriously pessimistic tone longer term, on the back of current conditions, however down those are. Some are basing their pessimism on their particular interpretation of models/forecasts, others just seem a little too much generally downbeat, and more so than upcoming trends justify right now IMO..

Can I be cheeky and post The Weather Outlook's very recently updated summer forecast? They're pretty positive for a fair number of periods of the forthcoming summer (including late June), but TWO seems to contradict what others are saying here and elsewhere ... thoughts?

You are basing the above on not much real evidence, if your post on the Model Output thread is any guide. And NOBODY knows what will happen in 2009. We've had some pretty rotten weather in recent days (with some warm sunshine inbetween though!) but that doesn't mean that unsettledness is bound to persist. I'm all for realism, and I do respect science-based real forecasts however bad, but the doom and gloom tendancy by some here, to assume that the weather will continue indefinitely as badly as it might be at a given current moment, is annoying. We're only on the official second day of official summer for heavens sake!

It was pretty bad just north of Yeovil on Thursday evening. The 'Sunrise Celebration' (!!) festival. our intended destination, was cancelled -- site under nearly a foot of water in places, I've seen some horrorshow pictures. We escaped to Glastonbury for the weekend instead, and there were bad downpours there too all of Thursday evening, but less in the way of floods. Frustratingly, Friday and Saturday were both mainly lovely!

BBC 4 weeker, updated Monday They're on the happy pills! Amazing, really ....

Thanks for these responses folks. Very little time on here this week, perhaps fortunately in the circumstances! I don't mind somewhat above average rain next month, given that the (fictional?) average for June is quite modest anyway. JACKONE's latest update for his general June/Glastonbury Festival forecast (see other thread) suggests ca. 115% on the month (he starts to get more exact with his projections next week). At least that would be better than last June's 191% of the June average overall UK. Better chance of dodging bullets at certain times <_< with less than that .... All one can do is hope for an upturn. One or two are still tentatively suggesting one in the foreseeable timeframe (for earlyish June?) in the Model Output thread. This weekend, which for me starts tomorrow, I expect a fairly wet Somerset .... not cold though ...

All of June? How can your inkling be so strong, so far ahead? John and GP have their reasons for posting much less pessimisticaly than that Although obviously things can alter in very short order, look at the now dramatically worsened prospects for this comig weekend and next week. That doesn't mean there'll necessarily be an unchanging pattern of next week's wet kind for the whole of June though, surely? It's hard for me, very much an amateur, to know whether John and GP are right but tis no secret I'm praying that they are! JACKONE's next update, due Sunday, on his Glastonbury Festival forecast blog, could prove illuminating, he's looking at general June trends as well as those for the very end of the month (when the Festival happens).

Cheers for this GP. It would be lovely (for sun and warmth lovers, anyway!) if the above scenario kicked in as early as towards the end of next week, but on the other thread people are now reading pessimistic conclusions from the current models for next week, there seems to have been a recent marked change towards unsettled there. But with luck that will just represent a transition, hopefully not too longlived .... Could you arrange for this to last, or at least return, for the SECOND half of the month too? Particularly the very end?? Tis encouraging though

There still remains plenty of uncertainty on the Model Output thread about exactly whet will happen next week after the unsettled blip** that will spoil Bank Holiday weekend for many, with wind and rain (particularly in the South). **Hopefully no more than that! But there's still some talk -- possibly starting to diminish -- of a marked improvement for next week -- High Pressure reasserting. That could at least reinforce the blocking for now/next week/into early June, and there's no certaintly/inevitability about the Atlantic/the Jet/unsettledness having to reassert themselves surely? And surely not continuously? I'm not suggesting a summerlong heatwave at all, rain is bound to happen at times and that's life in the UK, but just because current blocking can't last doesn't mean that High Pressure won't or can't reassert itself at least from time to time -- a washout of a summer like 2007's with scarely any warm or settled or even mainly dry weather at all before August, is surely as unlikely/freakish as a three month heatwave. All I'm trying to be is more optimistic and realistic at the same time. An 'average' summer -- and last summer was very far from average -- won't be a continual washout, and will surely include some episodes of warm sunshine in between the 'showers' ..... <not a fan of doom and gloom talk! >

It's the mixed bag of projections that causes the insecurity .... I know we'll get some rain, some of the time, it's inevitable and I'm not too stressed about getting some. It's the locking into an Atlantic-dominated/jetstreamish pattern for weeks on end that's the fear. But I do agree, there seems to be a good deal less risk of that than last year.

Any dissidents from the 'wet June' view? <prays>