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There's plenty of high pressure and warmth on the Ecm 12z for most of the uk during the days ahead with a good deal of dry and sunny weather, the exception being the far NW where it looks cooler and more unsettled. Early next week there is an increasing chance of thundery showers breaking out across the s / se due to a warmer more humid continental inflow and then things briefly turn cooler / fresher from the NW before the azores high builds in later next week and it warms up again, at least across southern uk...it's still spring but there is more summery weather on the way, especially across southern uk.

The ICON 12z is looking good..very good actually, becoming considerably warmer during the coming days with high pressure and plenty of sunshine, temps into the low to mid 20's celsius across england and wales.

Today is the beginning of a period of quiet and pleasant spell of weather for all, with the odd exception. dominated by high pressure, so waffle can be kept to a minimum. Although it is worth remembering how impressive the cold trough, and the east bound energy south of it, is as it makes the odd dent in the block. But of course the resilience of the block augmented by the ridging Azores high pressure is equally, if not more so, impressive.. The decaying front finally cleared to the south last evening leading to clear night. This will continue today with plenty of sunshine and temps quite respectable albeit east and south east coasts may be a tad cooler with the onshore breeze. Some cloud may bubble up of western Scotland and the north west as the day progresses. After a clear, chilly, night resulting in a ground frost in some places tomorrow will be another warm and sunny day with temps a little above average. The odd exception as mentioned earlier, will be N. Ireland and north west Scotland which will be cloudy with some patchy rain from a front loitering in the vicinity. After a clear night Saturday will be sunny and warm for all although worth noting that the center of the ridge has shifted into the North Sea under pressure from the aforementioned energy. By 1200 Sunday the trough to the west has deconstructed to some extent which impacts the Azores ridging north east and facilitates the movement of the front(s) east bringing cloud and rain to N. Ireland and the north west with also freshening winds Conversely this also allows the high pressure to the east to ridge south west thus the rest of the UK will continue to bask in warm sunshine. Although Monday will be another warm and sunny day for many areas there will be cloud and patchy rain to the north and west courtesy of the front hanging around and there could well be the odd thundery shower in the south drifting north from the low pressure area to the south But the deconstruction of the trough does promote the low pressure and instability from the south according to the gfs

Excellent EC mean with little sign of the jet moving south, in fact if anything the opposite with the jet lifting further north.

Its all looking good and backs up the metoffice post i put up last week about them being bullish about the next few weeks, stunning is what id say. Quick one for you frosty, i find it ironic reading your posts which i do everyday with great interest about the prospects for the coming weeks and the heat and sun, but its your name tag FROSTY that make me chuckle when i read about heat. Maybe you should change it this summer to SWEATY lol on account of the warm weather not your personal hygiene id like to add LO

There's some cracking weather on the Gfs 12z..a summery end to spring according to these charts! There's plenty of excellent weather before then too with high pressure and increasing warmth and very warm continental air spreading up across southern uk early next week and more humid with some thundery showers further south for a time..really summery.

Just looking at the 12 suite, I think everything remains very promising, and the slight deterioration early next week on most output looks exactly that - slight. Model comparison at T180, ICON: GFS, rather between two stools: GEM likewise: CMA, more continental flow:

The Gfs 6z is largely great, very summery with lots of high pressure and sunshine, during the first half of next week it becomes very warm and increasingly humid as we import continental air into southern uk with an increasing chance of thunderstorms but most of the run looks generally fine and warm / very warm with temperatures into the low to mid 20's celsius, especially across the southern half of the uk.

Major difference at 144t comparing GFS model with the latest UKMO model. For some reason the UKMO drops heights to the North and East, sort follows their worded forecast as reported earlier. Whereas, GFS maintains the high pressure across much of the country. This scenario is well backed by our forecasts over here. North and West Britain not getting the cooler temps and rainfall in the period post 144t as Met Office have suggested in their medium term forecasts. See what ECM brings. Maybe UKMO model going off one ! C

Much like the 6z before it, the GEFS 12z mean is indicating a summery spell as we approach the end of spring with plenty of high pressure and warmth, continental air and a brief slight fall in pressure across the south during the first half of next week bringing a risk of thundery?️ showers but generally it's looking warm and settled for most.

Looking warmer into next week, though with some instability in the atmosphere too: Looks like we may get some imports from the near continent with some warm and humid air wafting our way. Very much different to the recent warm spells which have been dominated by clear skies and low humidity. Edit - It's very annoying that you can't expand these attachments! Almost impossible to see!

As a personal preference, charts 1 and 5 would do nicely! (Seem the least unsettled looking) ?

Now that's bank holiday weather with this slightly reverse fish shaped high pressure nosing in on the FIM9 at T240 :

The only caveat to the ECM 12z is at the end, where other models have settled weather, this run throws a brief spanner, although I expect the high pressure to ridge in again in the next frame or two. T240: Looking at the ECM mean, however, next ridge of high pressure still oncoming at same time, strong signal: Interesting to compare these, the ECM mean is seeing nothing of the low east of Iceland on the op run, suggesting it's a rogue feature.

Leave Megan Markle's family out of this....

Hope it is not breezy tomorrow as have a very royal tea party going on !

From Saturday onwards, have recorded maxima of 17.5C, 17.5C, 20.4C, 19.4C and 19.2C and other than yesterday afternoon's cloudy blip, it's been sunshine all the way. Finally making good headway in the garden without being semi-frozen or getting drookit. Models are suggesting that it will remain predominantly settled right through to month end - which would be a great result. Swallows and housemartins have returned, though no sign of the swifts here yet and I think I heard the first cuckoo of the year yesterday, though it may have been a particularly clear cushy doo. My only hope for the summer right now is that it gives us a repeat of 2013, rather than the pattern of many recent years when a decent April/May has been as good as it gets in terms of settled weather and the subsequent summers have been mixed to poor. Fingers crossed it goes the right way!

CFS watch, June Z500 anomaly charts starting with today's 0z, then the last 4 runs: One bad one in there, couple meh, couple promising. Should always be taken in context of a large sample set of runs, of course, the previous days runs were better.

UKMO t144 shows the high getting back in place

Afternoon all. Some pretty nice weather being had at present. Had the car read 28c the other day!!! Needless to say, after 10 minutes drive it dropped to 23c, but still nice and warm considering 6 weeks ago most of us were buried in 4 feet of snaw. With the nice weather, there have been some pretty stunning sunsets. Currently mostly sunny and around 18C

It also brings out chavs and drunks lol

The current setups we are seeing are probably the result of an MJO wave which moved through the western Pacific in late April and was followed by enhanced trades in the Indian Ocean (Nino like). Current output does suggest that we may see trades strengthen in the central Pacific again (Nina like) so look for a potential bout of westerlies into early June should that occur.

Switching to long range, here's the last four CFS Z500 anomalies for June. First up yesterday's 18z, and then the three previous ones: Taken with other output, current trends etc., if anyone isn't calling a hot early summer, they want to take a look at themselves! (You can quote that back at me if it doesn't happen, but it seems that everything is pointing that way!)

As previously mentioned the Atlantic trough starts to deconstruct by 1200 Sunday when there is an active front orientated SW/NE along the strong thermal gradient. There is some very cold air in the trough denoting it's origin. The front is bringing cloud and patchy rain to N. Ireland and Scotland whilst elsewhere benefits with another warm , sunny day,. from the high pressure to the north east ridging south west The front is still lingering around the north west on Monday but the deconstruction has continued with a cut off upper low giving a boost to the low pressure over Iberia and this then tends to track north thus squeezing the ridge,and initiating a brisk E/SE wind and maybe some showers in the south. Still another pleasant day in most areas.

AS things stand we are going for our warmest May on record. At the moment next week is looking like it will nail it. Also looking like it will in the top ten driest as well at the moment it's the 5th driest.

Was just about to post the same. Looks at odds to the output at the moment.

Well another absolutely stunning day.. Same old grumpy people in the mod thread trying to do thier best to pick a chart that doesn't show dry and sunny weather.. How on earth can you not like this kind of weather? Makes everyone really happy and brings all the wildlife out..

12.2 to the 16th 1.5 above the 61 to 90 average 1.2 above the 81 to 10 average

Morning all, a bit better here this morning and slightly warmer. This mornings latest UKMO model comes on board with a developing upper low over France at 144t. Seems to be a reoccurring theme so far this part of the early summer. Best again looks Western and Central Britain with SE under risk from the development over France but could be marginal . C

A disturbance in the force..Hmm, I find your lack of faith disturbing Just had a look at the Gfs 00z and it's a pretty summery run which isn't bad considering summer is still 2 weeks away!

My Favourites are the Rose and Crown Chelmsford which is now gone the Railway Tavern in Chelmsford....Black Horse in Exeter and the Horse & Groom Exeter who i played sunday league towards the end of my playing days

Heating? Really?? Even with doors and windows open today my flat never dropped below 20c.

Yes, it was 2000. Probably changed a bit since then. C

The ecm is on the same page as the gfs and has the front and wave over Ireland 12 Monday, with rain into N. Ireland and Scotland, which also temporarily blocks the ridge whilst promoting some instability to the south. Not particularly looking like amounting to much at this stage.

Well, looking at the 12z GFS I would say it's mostly 14 to 17 C days from Friday to the 29th with a colder turn at the end of the month in very speculative FI time so that I'm more interested in the trend to 29th or so, which looks like this: from current 12.2 which I will move forward to 17th as little change seems likely, then if the next 12 days (18th-29th) average these values, we get to the stated CET ... 14.0 gets it to 12.9 C. 15.0 gets it to 13.3 C. 16.0 gets it to 13.7 C. 17.0 gets it to 14.1 C. As only 1833 broke 14 (and 15) that gets us into second place hunting grounds. Would need to average 19 to challenge 1833 (on my assumption of steady CET to and including Thursday 17th). The study I just finished on extreme weekly values suggests that 19-20 is about the upper limit of sustained warmth in late May so I think 1833 is safe but not as sure about second place 1848 (13.9). Two more lurk at 13.8 (1758 and 1788) with 1808 at 13.7 and 1992 at 13.6. We may pass some of those even if we don't stay ahead of them at the final reckoning.

Gfs 12z looks predominantly fine and rather warm..the Gefs 12z mean looks even better with the jet up near iceland..for those of us who enjoy fine weather, it's looking very good!

Nooo! That wind today was a nagging nithering one that was a sharp shock after the pleasant stuff of late. Heatings gone back on too in the house

Really liking the ICON 12z...another early taste of summer!

No change from UKMO with high pressure continuing into next week

Well, it is that time again ... LONG RANGE OUTLOOK for SUMMER 2018 In general terms, I am expecting a very warm summer for the U.K. and Ireland although trending more towards normal values in western Ireland and Scotland. There is likely to be a strong continental influence especially for southeast England, probably extending to south central England and the Midlands, Yorkshire and possibly parts of eastern Scotland too. Even parts of Ireland will benefit from this influence. My reasoning for this is based on two separate factors. One is that my research model indicates higher than average index values for isolated analogue components in about three quarters of the set that I have developed. The other factor is more immediate, blocking has continued to be a fairly prominent player ever since the notable cold outbreaks of late February into March, and as many suspected, that tendency would not remain cold far into the spring but would increasingly favour warmth (also turning from northeast to southeast dominant wind flow helps with the warming effects). I suspect that the summer may rank well up there among the top all-time summers for warmth, so I will go with some relatively conservative forecasts for the three monthly CET values of 16, 18 and 17, expecting that perhaps one of these will be too low, if not more. If that verified the summer would average 17.0 and be ranked tied 9th warmest with 1933, and marginally warmer than the currently tied 10th warmest summers of 1911 and 1781 (16.97) with only these summers warmer: __ 1947 (17.03), 1983 (17.07), 1846 (17.10), 2006 (17.23), 2003 (17.33), 1995 (17.37), 1826 (17.60) and 1976 (17.77) __ Some of the summers with good reputations finished as low as 16.5 so I would certainly expect 2018 to go higher than that. With that general set-up, the chances are high that rainfall would be below average in many southern and eastern districts, and closer to normal in western portions and in the north. The most likely zone for severe or heavy thunderstorm outbreaks would be near the average position of the polar front which separates tropical from modified Atlantic air masses, and that would likely be (on average) in southwest England, Wales, portions of southeast Ireland, northwest England and east-central Scotland but at times shifting closer to a Bristol to Newcastle line. This does not of course rule out some good thunderstorms in the warmer zone and it always seems like late June is a good time frame for Channel storm developments that last overnight and rumble across southeast England. With a suitable energy peak around 30 June this is perhaps even more possible. It is unlikely that this good summer weather regime will be permanent from start to finish and if you look at the list of similar or warmer summers, some have a bias towards later warmth and some go earlier, while a few distribute well throughout. With this blocking tendency already well established I imagine that this implies either an early bias like 1846, 2006 or 1976 or a constant warmth. It can be noted that my prediction would make this the warmest summer of years ending in 8. Summers ending in six have done very well in the past (four of the top six). The current warmest summer ending in 8 would be 14th ranked 1868 (16.87) which might prove a bit of a challenge. The futility mark is that of summers ending in zero (tied 49th warmest 1730,, followed by the fours (1794 was tied 36th). Lack of solar activity is correlated with blocking and it does not seem to be an impediment to hot summers, for example 1826 in a very inactive solar regime, 13th place going to 1899 in a low solar period and even the Maunder managed to produce 15th place 1676. The hot summers in more active solar intervals are generally near solar minima also, the only one with high solar activity would be 1947 although others are shoulder years in terms of solar cycles. I find solar indices to be more useful for winter forecasting when Atlantic storminess is more of a factor. No doubt in long intervals of low solar activity, there can be runs of dismal summers due to a depressed jet stream and colder ocean temperatures, but this year does not seem to fit that scenario (yet). As to tropical activity, I would look for a very active season with perhaps 20 named storms and 12 to 14 of those being hurricanes, 5 to 7 becoming major hurricanes. In North America, I am predicting a very hot summer in the west, and also across the southeastern U.S., with a gradient towards more normal temperatures northward into the Great Lakes and northeastern U.S., leading to very frequent thunderstorm activity near oscillating frontal bands running from Alberta southeast into the Dakotas and then east-south-east into the lower Great Lakes and inland northeastern U.S. ... these regions may have some severe storms and flooding episodes as a result. The inland west may have a scorcher of a summer and widespread wildfire problems (hope I'm wrong about this, but it's 31 C outside my house right now, normal would be 19 C).

With the right forcing from the tropics, that active jet could be diverted north of us. We managed that May-June last year but then the tropics changed tune and as you say, things took a turn for the worse. I recommend checking out this afternoon's MOD thread post from Tamara for more information on this .

Ditto here with a great sunset just now to the NW across the Firth

Same here don’t even recal anything thundery last autumn either. So a very long stretch of nothingness and it looks to remain this way for quite some time.

Got very tanned in the garden yesterday - was a stunning day. Hoping for the same today.

Hi folks, nice evening here, very warm in the sunshine. This is the view from the park round the back of my house. You get a great view of the campsies from here.

This Swallow was giving the barn a recce this morning. There have been several Swallows and Martins arriving over past day or two, over three weeks later than on previous years. After the rabbit population was all but eradicated by a virus a couple of years ago, numbers seem to be on the increase again. This cute wee youngster is one of two born in the garden this spring. Not growing any veggies this year and so not really bothered about their presence.

Okay, so how did that long-range winter forecast actually turn out? I have copied it and pasted below, but in paragraphs with comments in green. These comments come after the paragraphs to which they refer. (Roger Smith LRF for winter 2017-18 posted on 3rd of November 2017) ================================================================= In general, I would look for a fairly cold winter to develop, almost all global drivers seem to be at least 50-50 in suggesting a mixture of rather cold zonal patterns and at least weak blocking episodes over the North Atlantic and European sectors. ^^ A bit too vague to be verifiable, I suppose. ^^ While I'm not optimistic about this being an exceptional winter, it could produce one spell of severe winter weather conditions, so I'm expecting it to finish perhaps colder than 3/4 of the past fifty winters or near the average of the past 360 as provided by the CET record. Perhaps the best way to describe the expected outcome is a typical 18th or 19th century winter, with at least one month well below normal in temperature. ^^ This was fairly accurate but a little cold-biased. The winter averaged 4.33 C (4.8, 5.3, 2.9 monthlies), had one cold month (Feb), and was colder than 30 of the past fifty (which would begin with 1967-68); these 20 winters were colder (in increasing degrees of cold) 1982-83, 1983-84, 2005-06, 1977-78, 1996-97, 2012-13, 2008-09, 1986-87, 1967-68, 1976-77, 1969-70, 1968-69, 2010-11, 1995-96, 1990-91, 1985-86, 1984-85, 1981-82, 2009-10, 1978-79. ... To be near the average of the whole CET period the winter would have had to finish 0.5 deg colder than it did, it ranked 129th (but tied with 130th to 134th) warmest overall. As to being a "typical" 18th or 19th century winter, that seems to fit better than it might many recent winters. There was no outrageously mild month, and one fairly cold one. But as a rough measure, I counted how many winters out of 200 (1701 to 1900) were milder than this past one, and found 59 out of 200 were milder. In fact about ten from the Maunder half-century were milder also. So this winter would not have been that unusual, whether "typical" is the right word or not. ^^ There are more signs of this being January than either December or February but the most severe portion of the winter could come fairly late into January and edge into early February. ^^ No doubt those signs were the widely rumoured stratospheric warming which was delayed into mid-February. So the most severe portion of the winter almost missed winter (D-J-F) entirely. ^^ At the same time I think the set-up will produce some stormy episodes and not overly mild storms either, coming at the UK from a westerly or slightly northwesterly direction in some cases. The period from about mid-December to mid-January is favoured for this stormier period. ^^ I think this was generally accurate. The stormy period of the winter was probably more like the first three weeks of January than the above, and many did come from a westerly direction more than south-westerly. Of course the end of February was stormy also, from a northeasterly direction. ^^ I could go into detail about why I think this may happen but I think it has been fairly widely discussed already that solar and PDO factors are generally in favour of colder outcomes downstream from both large oceans. The pattern expected in North America is for very cold weather to set up over western regions with oscillating extensions of this cold towards the northeast U.S., in other words, an up and down temperature trend for the western Atlantic. There are signs of at least mild blocking over Greenland and a trend to lower if not below normal heights over western Europe. ^^ There certainly was a cold source in western Canada that sent periodic cold waves southeast, anomalies for the eastern states were bouncing up and down with more than the usual vigour all winter, although the trend was probably more mild than cold in that region. The other comments seem generally true. ^^ So I think the signs are more favourable than in many recent winters (other than 2009-10 or 2010-11) and finally the research model that I use (independent of most of the above reasoning) also shows a tendency to a colder turn in January in analogue years. ^^ January had some cold days around 19th-20th but the most significant cold arrived before mid February, backed off for a while and returned with a sting in late February. ^^ Since the period after southern declination maximum and leading towards northern maximum is favoured for blocking and cold this further implicates late January with the northern max timing for the month around 2nd and 29th. The period of 2-4 January would be my best bet for stormy conditions and 18-20 December as well as 16-18 January secondary peaks. When you consider the overall trends then the best bet for a snowy interval would be during or after that mid-January peak of storminess. Given the high energy peaks available this winter, I will not be at all surprised if one of these winter storms is in the exceptionally severe category (either for wind or snow). ^^ These peaks of storminess verified well. The strongest winds in Ireland for example occurred on January 2nd, and there was a very severe storm across the North Sea (Frederike or some such spelling) that intensified over the eastern part of England and walloped the Netherlands quite hard (think that was 17th-18th Jan). As to whether these were exceptionally severe, probably not in the UK, locally yes in Ireland's case and certainly for the Netherlands a memorable storm. The end of February into first two days of March brought an exceptionally severe snowstorm to southeast Ireland and fairly severe in parts of England and Wales, but this wasn't a time period mentioned in the forecast. ^^ There are bound to be one or two very mild days in the mix given the high frequency of record or near-record highs in this climate phase, and the most likely times for those would be before the mid-December storminess peak, and possibly in late February when blocking may convert to a southerly flow. ^^ The mildest days of the winter from CET stats (7.5 and above) were these .. 9.2 and 9.0 on 6th-7th of Dec, and 9.2, 9.0, 8.4, 8.7, 9.7 from 21 to 25 Dec, followed by 7.7 and 8.5 on 30-31 Dec 2017, then 7.9 on 4th Jan, 9.1 and 9.8 on 23rd-24th Jan, 8.9 and 9.3 on 29th-30th Jan; 7.9 and 7.5 on 19th and 20th of February. So in general this was incomplete at best, the warmth expected before the mid-December storminess was delayed like the storminess itself, and a cold spell around 9th to 14th December was not anticipated in the forecast. The January warmth came about when it would have been expected (mostly before northern max dates) but this was not discussed in the forecast because January was expected to see the colder trend setting in. The late February blocking occurred with some southerly flow ahead of it but this was blown away by stronger easterly flow after about the 24th. ^^ Overall, this forecast did better in its broad general assumptions than in the specific timing of events. I would give it a B for the overall assessment (it was a bit milder in general than expected but did fall fairly close to where it was placed in the long-term context), B for storminess commentary (some good hits there) and C for month to month variability (the only good feature was that there was one cold month, the timing was generally not good). The exceptional cold and snow at the end of February and first two days of March was not really anticipated then, perhaps more about a month earlier from the wording of the forecast. Had there been some better guidance available about the timing of the stratospheric warming event that might have influenced the wording. This is not a part of my research that has received enough attention from me, as I have no working theory of cause and effect within the research paradigm (in other words, I am looking for a cause for these episodes that I can time out successfully, and so far this has eluded detection). The cold spell in December also fell through the cracks of the research index values, so I'm looking at that for clues for improvements.