Uncle_Barty

I should add to my last post that assuming we are past the minimum now, average solar activity will very likely continue at little above rock bottom for the next few months - for example, I think it will be into 2021 before we see daily solar flux levels climbing above the 70s for more than the odd day at a time.

Yes 3 spot groups now, all higher latitude = Cycle 25. There is now little doubt that solar minimum has passed, and in time will be formally recognised as having been in December 2019. Need a few more months data to be 100% sure, but I would be extremely surprised now if this was not the case. Early cycle progress will almost certainly be slow - the likely size of the cycle will probably be about the same (or maybe slightly larger) then the last one. We will still have some very quiet periods this year and into next, and the spotless days count will continue to rise, albeit probably not as quickly as in the last 2 years or so.

Likely to be 19/22/22/22/22 here in town unless a ENE'ly prevails and stops a sea breeze developing. The airport is a few miles inland over sandy soils.

NONE of the models have verified yet for the weekend coming. NONE. No point in "calling" one of the models being "right" and "top". Saturday is 4 days away yet. Still time for things to change.

Ton up!! 37.8c is exactly 100F. To think that before 2003, that was a temperature not recorded before in the UK. Now the third hottest day recorded, with onmly 10 August 2003 and "Furnace Thursday" last year ahead of it.

Peaked at 25.9 here an hour or so ago, but the steady ESE wind keeping a lid on temps here. Meanwhile Heathrow and Northolt both reporting 35c/95f. Think the record is just out of reach, can't think we'll add more than 2 degrees or so. Just imagine if we had this air in place for 3-4 days instead of being brushed aside after a day as so often happens. Have to feel sorry for Jersey. temps there rapidly rose to 25c or so by 8am. Now sat in fog and 18c!

Almost correct. see my previous post above.

Article here suggesting that solar minimum was reached last November. (PDF) Solar Cycle 25 Started on November 17, 2019 with 365 Days Smoothing WWW.RESEARCHGATE.NET PDF | In our previous article we found a relationship between the adjusted solar flux and the start of sunspot cycles. We used the 13 month smoothed... | Find, read... While it is probably too early to state this categorically for sure, the slow but steady increase in the appearance of Cycle 25 spot groups, and some low sunspot numbers/solar flux readings from a year ago dropping from the reckoning, I think the article will end up being pretty close to the mark. There are also a couple of interesting graphs on solen.info by Jan Alvestad detailing the running 365-day smoothed means of both sunspot numbers and daily solar flux readings. These figures are always centred on 6 months ago, so today's rolling solar flux average over the past year is stated as being for (and centred on) early January. The graph focussing on the 24/25 transition is here

The first half of July 2012 was an utter car crash with more rain here than the average for June and July combined during those two weeks, a 90% sunshine deficit and very suppressed temperatures. The whole of July 1988 was a disaster too. The 2nd half of July 2017 was pretty unsettled as well. The start of this July is certainly going to be changeable, but almost certainly not on a par with 2012 or 1988, and better the further south you are. And the signs from the models are that it is too early to write off the summer beyond this time next week. I refer to the ECM clusters posted earlier on. I remember 1997 which had a very unsettled spell end of June (Glastonbury was particularly wet that year) but things did start to settle down at the first week of July progressed.

ECM clusters: D7 split 53:47 in favour of trough centred 5W/56N versus 10W/61N Going further out by a couple of days, about a quarter show Greeny heights building nicely (or not nicely if you want settled weather here!) and a SCUK trough. The other two clusters show heights to S or SW of UK, giving a N/S split.

Matt Hugo on Twitter still bullish on AAM staying on the low side (as he has been all summer so far) pointing to atlantic ridge/UK trough setup going into July,.

Thank you, Tamara. The part I' ve highlighted.. is that at least a contributary factor behind what many refer to the "June return of the westerlies" that often blights part of early summer?

I had a thread running on the other place on the progress of Solar Cycle 24/25 but that thread has now been deleted by the look of things. We will know for sure in six to twelve months. But I believe from current data that the minimum will have turned out to have been during the 4th quarter of last year. Solar flux-wise, we had some very low readings for a period beginning about now this time last year. With solar flux levels just starting to edge up now in response to a slowly increasing number of sunspot groups, these low values will start to drop out of the reckoning, and unless there is a slump in SFI to a very low level in the next few weeks, the smoothed 12-month mean solar flux will have turned out to reach a minimum of 69.14 in mid-November last year. This annual value centred on December 7th is now up to 69.22. As for sunspots, the statistical minimum looks likely to be December 2019. This could be brought forward to November 2019 if June's sunspot number reaches 11.. not completely out of the question as we are definitely seeing an increase in Cycle 25 groups. We shall see! As I mentioned in the other place, there is a sizable school of thought that we are entering a Grand/Dalton/Maunder minimum period. I think this is most unlikely, and the upcoming cycle will be similar in size to the last one (quite a weak maximum) or perhaps a little stronger. My basis for this is the strength of the sun's polar magnetic field at the time of solar minimum. There is a graph here: https://solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html There is a clear correlation between the strength of the polar magnetic field at solar min and the size of the succeeding solar max.

This may not be good news, however...: Ben Noll @BenNollWeather Anomalous upper level convergence across the tropical Pacific suggests the atmosphere will continue to head in the direction of La Niña over the next month... An interesting pattern for when African easterly wave season begins AIUI, a low AAM is not good news for good summer weather here (need to learn why!) Will wait to see what Tamara and co come up with as they know far more than I about the teleconnections. Not really paying any attention to what the models say more than 4-5 days out, as IMHO it's just noise until the background signals become clearer.

Thank you kind sir. Far more useful than the mean chart which is next to useless. Tried to put it through Google Translate in the hope of making it easier to understand properly, though I think I have the gist of it.

Where does one get that chart? is it generally available?

Apart from that late May spell, 2012, (after an exceptionally warm late March spell), was unremittingly cool/cold and unsettled from about 9th April through to late July IIRC. Nothing like this year. This could be more akin to 1989 when after a fine May, June had a cool unsettled spell first half (my only 2 weeks off during the whole summer) before things turned generally fine and very warm again.

If it produces winds in excess of 100mph, it should be renamed Storm Dennis Lillee

The Davis anemometers tend to under-read, from what I can gather. I had gusts up to 49mph during Ciara, highest ever was 54mph back in Oct 2002. My anemometer is above the roof of the house 10m up and completely in the clear. One of these days I am going to get a transducer-based anemometer.

Not looking forward to this storm at all. If there is one thing I hate, it's very strong winds. Hoping my radio antenna system will survive..... They did survive the 2014 storm, but....

In other words John.. changeable but not disastrous!

Cos we all suspect the models will show green snot parked over the UK again in the morning.....

Looks more akin to the start of the summer of 2011 - a lot of UK troughing in the first half of June. I was having soem external work done at home at that time, and I am having all my guttering, soffits and facias done next week! What happens beyond then, who knows. The early part of June '07 was actually quite pleasant.

In my view, there is nothing in the output to suggest much more than a brief cold snap in prospect. There is no real sign of high lat blocking in the forseeable, and that is a problem for those hoping for a decent spell of proper winter weather. That is not to say that things could look much more hopeful on that score seven days from now, however. Things can change quite quickly.

Just out of interest.. what ones did you try?