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What's important in terms of keeping our weather prospects positive through July is the transition into weak Nino-like state and the general upward AAM tendency that's involved. Being in a fully-fledged El Nino with entirely high AAM orbits is different, let alone a moderate-to-strong El Nino like we had in 2015 - hence correlations with the El Nino measures don't tend to reveal much in the way of significant patterns. Anyway, here's a look at what sends the ECM 00z on such a markedly unstable route by late Saturday and the UKMO 00z on such a stable one - below left to right are the 00z runs of ECM, UKMO and GFS, all for day 5: It's all about the break in the ridging between the mid-Atlantic and the N. Sea with the ECM. This allows a wedge of cooler air to make its way south, which then interacts with the Iberian low and initiates substantial deepening and northward movement (but worth noting that ECM does tend to get a bit carried away with this interaction). UKMO has only the slightest chink in the ridging, with a small wedge of cooler air making it through, but then being drawn away around the circulation of the high pressure centre in the mid-Atlantic. Meanwhile, the flatter jet on the northern flank of the ridging drives warm air advection that lends support to the high centred in the north sea. Hence the stunning day 6 chart that follows. GFS sits at halfway house between the above two extremes. Perhaps it's the most realistic solution although this logic is far from infallible. It has most of the cooler air avoiding the drop south, but still enough doing so that the Iberian low is able to deepen slightly. It then drifts toward us a bit, but this is more a result of the N. Sea high shifting a bit to the NE as a result of the flow S. of Iceland being less flat; the warm air advection is directed more toward the north of Scandinavia and the high follows suit. So there you have it - a relatively small variation in the flow to the S. of Iceland leading to widely different outcomes by Sunday. No wonder the EPS has shown wide scatter over the past couple of days!

Looking at the GEFS 6z mean...this week = Glorious very warm / hot anticyclonic, hottest further south. Next week, increasingly humid / unstable continental thundery conditions then briefly fresher from the west followed by another surge from the azores high / ridge.

Aye, and there's nowt much worse than a cleg-bite on the Trossachs!

Thinking back to this time last year, Edinburgh was under water in it's wettest June on record. Very different story this year.

30c reached today. Expecting more heat over the next few days into the start of the weekend. Humidity might rise towards the weekend. Models for now pretty much hold steady in the strong stubborn block. A common theme in solar minimum coupled with other factors such as east qbo and natural Nino. I'm expecting more height dominant summer.

I personally hope it doesn't rain again until October.

GFS 6z sticking two fingers up at the ECM for the weekend: Very hot again on Sunday if this verifies.

The ECM mean is getting rather consistent about a westerly breakthrough mid-next week - though I agree it is a way off, when the mean does this, it's rarely a million miles away. But I also drawn to heights to the NE. Which may mean the Atlantic doesn't break in for long before the next draw from the south?

This looks to be a problem to me...by 192 hours you have a major plume of hot air coming off the NE of the states.... This brings about a strong thermal gradient and fires the jet back up (which has been dead for most of the time recently). This could really scupper any build of pressure into July.

This is very good to hear

Wee bit chilly at lunch......

Differences in the ensembles for 1st July getting a bit smaller but still some way to go: The outlook beyond that seems to hinge on whether heights can stay strong to our east during this period. Runs with strong heights at D7/D8 lead to good heights through the UK right the way to D15 - those without good heights at this point go downhill into an unsettled period. Look at the precise and very stark 50/50 split on the D13 chart! So a UKMO 00Z / GFS 06Z style chart at T144 may not merely be settled for the coming weekend, but also for the week that follows.

Just catching up the models this morning, not that that entails a great deal as the sunny and hot period period has been a slam dunk for a few days now but there is always something of interest to be gleaned from the detail. A quick word on yesterday before moving on. Down in the south west early morning Ci thickened during the afternoon and by sundown was quite extensive. At the moment it is still around over Cornwall as can be seen on the 0300 WV image. So a brief overview. The sunny weather will continue over the next few days, getting hotter in many places, as the center of the high cell moves east in to the North Sea and the ridge starts to build north east again by the end of the week. This does introduce an easterly element into the proceedings and thus cooler and possible cloudy conditions in some eastern coastal regions. So the today and tomorrow will be sunnier and even hotter in many places than yesterday, the exception being northern Scotland which will be cooler and cloudier courtesy of some adjacent fronts. But by tomorrow the easterly element has been initiated which will impact on some eastern regions and in a more positive way on some western regions with some some quite high temps possible due to the 'Foehn Effect' that has been touched upon recently. This includes N. Ireland as can be seen on a couple of forecast soundings. Other coastal regions, apart from the east, will tend to be cooler as well as sea breezes kick in. Wednesday a very similar scenario And again on Thursday By Friday the easterly drift has backed and strengthened a tad so perhaps greater impact on NE coastal regions and maybe a little further inland as the Azores gathers itself away in the south west and fronts are not a million miles away from NW Scotland.

I have a feeling that the breakdown will lead to either a Classic Summer with a July CET above 18C or a disgusting Atlantic destruction à la 2015 with a CET of around 15C. With what 2018 has brought already I just don't see an average/mixed summer. Now I say that it's probably gonna come out bang on average

Some max temps today http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/18.html

Robot ice cream people.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. When I come to power it will be illegal to work on days as lovely as this and ice creams will be free to all.

Day 5 charts GFS/UKMO/GEM That Atlantic trough is getting a little too close for comfort though most areas are fine and very warm at this point. Still the risk of low cloud across the NE from Friday onwards due to an increasing easterly breeze. A good result would be for that trough to go NE and keep the UK fine or stall out west to initiate a plume, trouble is that middle ground where the trough worms its way across the UK with the help of that low close to Portugal. A lot can change but a plume event looks a struggle as the initial placement of the low looks a little too far east as you would assume any reinvigoration of that low will pull it north east like the ECM op this morning. Still a solid spell of fine and very warm weather which will last up to at least Saturday and hopefully eastern areas will at least remain bright even if temperatures will cool a little due to an onshore wind.

15.8 to the 24th 1.8 above the 61 to 90 average 1.6 above the 81 to 10 average _______________________________ Current high this month 18.7 to the 1st Current low this month 15.7 to the 23rd

And the heat goes on and on into next week aswell!!amazing stuff!!hot and sunny!!high over the uk at 1020mb at 204 hours !!

GFS 6z definitely didn’t go down the ECM route. Staying potentially hot until the end of the reliable.

Settled, sunny and cloudless with steadily improving temps through the weekend. Max of 23.3C yesterday and already 19.6C this morning. Proper scorchio by the looks of things later on this week and continuing dry and settled in the reliable. Some snaps from yesterday evening on the Langside (the hill road to Comrie). Glorious.

One of the strange things about weather forecasting is how sometimes that weather can be quite easy to predict up to 10 days out, yet another period of weather can be picked up as problematic at long range and remain unresolved until very near the time. We're seeing that very phenomenon right now - whilst the current period 23rd-29th June seems nailed on as much as 7 days ago, the forecast for 1st July has changed more times than the colour of a tree-frog. Last night, the models did not take the upper low anywhere near the UK by this time: yet this morning it's much further north on all the main op runs: The clusters last night also showed important differences for how heights were forecast around the UK at this date: cluster 1 having more westerly influence than any of this morning's op runs, cluster 2 not far off the UKMO and cluster 3 showing some similarity in to the ECM albeit the upper low still much further south) These small differences turned into large differences by the 3rd July - much more presence from the Atlantic trough - though still to the west, meaning the chance of an extended period of southerlies remains: Best guess beyond Saturday - Still hot where the sun gets through but much more mixed in weather type. More runs needed - again!!

Yes - nervous times for many of us as that dreaded murk can spread very far inland. Could potentially ruin what could have been an otherwise excellent week. I feel sorry for east coast dwellers in particular who have had to put up with this nonsense for what seems like forever now - and even when it's been sunny it hasn't been warm.

Flaming start to Wimbledon. Seems to be falling in line with the other models.

Just enough cloud to make for an interesting sunset.

GFS really arcing the jet back down the eastern flank of our ridge from later Thursday through to early Saturday, as that little low moves into Scandinavia. If it was January we'd be cheering it on, but as it's June, most of us would rather see the other models nail this with the jet heading either N-S (cooler air stays just to our east, potentially staying very warm through Fri-Sun) or NW-SE (cooler air heads nicely away east of us - best solution for sustaining the heat through Friday and the weekend). UKMO has the NW-SE outcome, but as with the 00z it follows this up with a low moving through Iceland that the other models have been keeping NW of there. At +144, this low looks a bit threatening at first glance, but actually, the open door looks to be to it's NE or NNE rather than S or SE, so it shouldn't give E&W much bother, with at least a weak ridge holding on across most or all of the UK. True that Scotland could see something cooler with a chance of some rain, though. Let's see what ECM gets up to. Given the 12z ICON and GEM runs plus decent 00z EPS support, it would not be surprising to see an outcome similar to the 00z, but there's still enough uncertainty that something different would only be slightly more surprising. Having reached 25*C here when the global models had 23 or 24*C, I'm still seeing a good chance of hitting the magic 30 at some point in the coming week, and this also looks a true statement for many in Central and Southwest England .

Let's hope it's enough to touch the sides without being so torrential it causes flash flooding...

Fingers crossed we get some rain in the first quarter of July,we certainly need it!

The Gfs 6z operational is a warm run, especially further s / e..this week it's all about high pressure and very warm / hot sunny days and warm clear nights whereas next week it's looking more humid / unstable with heavy showers / thunderstorms but some sunny weather too.

Thankfully the chances of a repeat of a 76 summer are very low,looking like as we are going more into July more normal summer weather will return. Much needed for wildlife and farmers!

The clegs are coming absolutely horrendous in the trossachs just now .it's usally the midges that are the worst but this year it's the ninja like clegs that's biting

Late to the party with the Saturday night sunset snaps, but here we go... The Met are suggesting that we won't see a cloud until at least next Sunday. Superb

Been using generic cetrizine and also loratadine (latter works best early in season, former once the grass pollen gets going). This is the first year when neither have worked well for whatever reason. Resorted to also combining the tablet with smearing petrolatum around the front and inside the nose. Kids find it hilarious and the shiny nose looks a bit silly but past caring as it does make a good difference in stopping the worst of the sneezing. Going to be a hot day here, already up to 20C and unbroken sunshine. Bit more of a breeze would be nice as the flies are swarming round humans and animals alike, no clegs (yet....).

Beautifull gfs 06z so far!biscay low further south compared to ecm and the hot and humid weather continues into the weekend!just brilliant!!

The SST pattern is indicative of a strong +NAO tripole (itself largely the result of a strong +NAO period - they reinforce each other). So long as we see a +AO (May was among the most positive on record) then it's likely that we could see the pattern continue to rebuild. If the AO flips then the enhanced sub-tropical high resulting from a +NAO will probably find itself negatively tilted and simply serve to fire the conveyor belt at us. So it's swings and roundabouts. If the AO plays ball we get the best scenario possible. If it does not then rather than slow moving southerly lows that we can avoid, we get a raging Atlantic for the time of year since the enhanced sub-tropical heights will simply enhance the westerlies at the mid-lattitudes.

Two influences which are probably too small to have an impact on the UK directly. 1987 had an El Nino setup with low solar activity as did 2004 and 2009 but neither 3 will be remembered as hot and dry in years to come. Maybe the Atlantic SST pattern could be explaining things somewhat as cold SSTs to the south of Greenland usually lead to warmer European Summers. High pressure set to dominate this week but the heat is set to trigger off some instability in the Bay of Biscay next weekend. This may well lead to a thundery breakdown but its still early days.

Some impressive diurnal ranges yesterday, not often you see a 20C+ climb in temperatures. Station.......Min.......Max....... Range Gurteen....5.6C......25.7C.....+20.1C Mt Dillion..5.4C......25.5C.....+20.1C Mullingar...5.2C......25.5C.....+20.3C

So the continental influences continue I suspect this will continue for sometime with atmosphere changing towards a more el Nino setup along with a relatively low solar activity. High pressure has dominated being strong in nature with minor blips in between. Dry hot summer was always very much at the forefront of my mind. Very happy with the models ecm gem and ukmo all very nice classic 80s style summer home grown heat as well. Excellent outlook Today I see continual higher heights over uk with a switch to a more easterly flow with low pressure to our sw would only help in becoming unsettled. But not fresh or cool. More likely unsettled warm humid with thunderstorms. I would continue to be on the fence beyond day 10. I believe the sluggish Atlantic dominance likely to continue for sometime yet. So I believe there's absolutely nothing wrong with short midterm outlook. Very nice and a very hot day today for fair few across uk. Even in the north through this week is on course for some summery weather. 30c to 31c likely today in the hot spots temps gradually increasing through the week. maybe bit cooler by weekend but still very warm.

20c now at Heathrow.. Going to be a warm week haven't posted in a week as I was working at Royal ascot at a big bar doing bbq and kitchen. We managed around 2500 burgers, 400 sausages and about 500 kebabs A fantastic week and would do it again although I've done 60 hours roughly in the last 5 days.. So taken today off normal work to recover.. Also on the last day Saturday, I had to speak to police about an incident Enjoy the sunshine people! We could do with some rain though!! Royal Ascot 2018 done and dusted

i was employed by the council in 76, so my wages were safe, lol. if the grass browns off now - i dont care, im drawing a pension, so its not a disastrous or hard hitting financially as 1995 was - but even then half of my income was contract, so again, weatherproof. 2012 wasnt disastrous, it was just unpleasant as long wet growth = harder work in unpleasant conditions. yep, im getting a 1995 vibe about this summer too bring it on!

Fantastic Ecm 00z, we have dry very warm / hot sunny weather this week under high pressure with temps in the mid / high 20's c and some areas hitting 30/31c followed by increasingly humid continental and still very warm conditions with sunshine and thunderstorms next week with temps still potentially in the mid 20's c range.

Yup although more hot and humid for the weekend it still more thundery and wet!!see where this sits in the ensembles!!ukmo is fantastic though!!hope its right!!

Latter stages of overnight Ecm yet again giving a thumbs down to any hopes of a continuation of the heatwave beyond next weekend. This transition while slow in nature certainly seems to be gaining momentum. So something distinctly far more average compared to this week seems very likely now as we enter July.

Just had to mention this as have just been out to watch the glow of the set sun to the north and was coming back through the garden when I noticed our resident badger has helped himself to one of the early potato plants and scoffed the lot. Have never witnessed this before Had just told Mrs Northernlights that they would be ready to use in week. Another first for this year, a year that that is turning into a very memorable one not just the weather. 90% of hay bales under cover and turnips almost all scarified. Currently 13.5c and clear.

Notable change between 12z and 18z for next Saturday. 12z had most just about scraping 20C. Low-mid 20s for majority on 18z, but still a cooler North Sea coast!

Good Evening everyone. Another lovely day here in Mid Essex. My allotment is bone dry and there is no rain forecast for at least another week and so a lot of watering to look forward to. I saw on Countyfile 5 day forecast that Essex has only received 3% of the monthly rainfall thus far this month and it could be record breaking. Kind Regards Dave

CET set to rise again through the rest of the month, if we see a 0.1 degree rise each day - highly likely we will end up with a value of 16.4 degrees, which would make it easily the warmest since 1976. What will prevent it rivalling the very warmest Junes, are the generally cooler nights ahead, no humid continental airstream. The next few days look a carbon copy of conditions same period in late June 1995.

That's quite a long heatwave the ECM gives us there. Temperatures up to 26C tomorrow on raw output (so probably around 28/29C from experience), and it pretty much stays there until the end of the weekend, when temps start drifting up even more, and hot weather still not clear even by Wednesday. Quite a narrow pathway between cooler air to the north and a plume to the south by the end of the weekend - could easily swing much cooler or even hotter. Am I sounding like a scratched record?

my weather watchers photo was just shown on BBC weather, heh