Evening thunder

Wow, at 5pm Filton had a temp/dew of 29.4/-0.8C and a humidity of 14%! Here a bit more mundane, 23/12 and 52% humidity around that time. Max of 25.2C and hovering around 23-24C most of the day due to a sea breeze. Min was 7.9C so cool nights still, a bit different to a station that's 10 miles north of me as the crow flies, at 280m altitude that had a min of 16.1C!

Last June saw 5 days in a row of 25C+ and matched my highest temp in the last 11 years (29.2C) so that spell was better than this one here so far, Obviously it will vary with location though. This June is warmer on average though (the warmest in my 10 years of records) so depends what you are looking for really. This month is undeniably a good June. I rated the first half of summer 2017 as ok/decent here.

I'm 2.6 miles from the closest point as the crow flies, although that's over a hill that reaches 212m, and the direction of the sea breeze often seems to be up the river valley that reaches the sea 5.3 miles away. Guess I shouldn't complain given that lol, though in April/May we had a sea breeze but managed to reach a similar temperature with colder SSTs. For some reason I'm often similar to Exeter Airport which is further inland, though yesterday we were a few degrees cooler. The Met Office tend to underestimate temps here too, significantly today, it's been 23-24C much of the day so far with a brief peak at 25.2C. WU look like being closer as they seem to be giving forecasts 1-3C higher than the Met Office over the next few days. I see at 3pm it was 29.7C at Chivenor and 27.5C at Plymouth (who have had the wind back from SE to E, instead of a sea breeze again).

This spell shows the problem with living near a coastline when wanting interesting summer temps. Not a lot you can do if you want to be near the coast. Though a north or west facing coast is often better in hot spells, like tomorrow. Looks like another case of Plymouth right on the coast being (significantly) warmer than me when I'm a few miles inland too. Tomorrow forecast 21C for me and 20C on Wednesday. If not underestimated, that's average lol. Thursday/Friday look warmer but a pool of cooler 850's drifts in as if by magic to probably limit temps a bit (mid 20's still hopefully). ECM forecast edged down a bit once more. I guess it's ironic that the media photos of packed beaches and scorching headlines will probably come from will be one of the coolest areas. Certainly not 'hotter than Miami' like the BBC said, (try their 32C highs, 26C lows, and mid 20's dewpoints..)

A lovely day, but the sea breeze on overdrive keeping it around 23C much of the day. I noticed Plymouth Mount Batten and Lands End airport got that warm even though they're right on the coast and I'm a few miles inland lol. A brief fluctuation to 24.9C though. Min of 7.4C, still cool nights although not as cool as the 3.5C the other day (the max then was 22.5C giving a range of 19C).

Hopefully the ECM is right as I can't complain at that. Although I wouldn't say it's quite 'hot' here, Met Office show it not exceeding 22C here until Thursday, then up to 25C. I feel it may be over-doing the effect of sea breezes but even so. A fantastic forecast though with a sunshine symbol every day of the next 7, not seen that for a while. Looks like dryness will continue to be the most notable theme, just without the interest/novelty factor of it being as hot as it could have been.

I was also going to post that you can see the change for example by comparing last night's t t+144 (or even t+120) to today's 12z t+126 (or t+102) At that range with all models similar you can sort of be forgiven for believing it. Now the high is orientated less favourably and weaker, and open to lasting less long. Hopefully it's not a precedent, I've known downgrades like this to seem like a theme for the season. ECM ensembles far less good than last nights, that also had +14C 850's in the south at t+216. Today's have lost the +12 line by T+168, almost t+144. Also, the Met Office only forecasting 20C here from Wednesday's chart (which looks good still) ! The highest is 25/24C on Thursday/Friday. So unless they are significantly overestimating the effect of sea breezes etc, it looks like I may only get a few 'very warm' days anyway. The North coast is forecast to be a lot warmer of course. I haven't reached 30C here in my records starting in 2007. We are often moderated by the sea but it's still about time it happened. Hopefully this post ends up looking a bit silly and we get a great spell and/or summer. Sometimes does seem like there's a lot of 'fair weather' folk about, nothing wrong with that of course but surely they can understand us finding extremes interesting.

Some will say I shouldn't complain but there's definitely continuing movement away from something particularly notable. Now, it still looks like a very nice week in a nice May/June period so I'm not complaining so much from the 'summer feel factor' point of view, but the interest point of view. It seems a rare chance at something more special/notable has been missed again. The only one I can think of that's verified recently is the 'Beast from the east'. That's the problem in this country, it's so hard to get conditions that even the Pacific NW can get most years, that it matters when it's downgraded, at least to me. In most other mid latitude climates the next thunderstorm, snow, heat, cold etc wouldn't be far away.

A nice day yesterday with it still reaching 20.2C. Pretty chilly last night though, down to just 3.5C. A glorious morning now. Forecast looks good! Although I feel the Met Offices 22C for Tuesday and Wednesday and 24C on Thursday for me is a little low, even if we get some sea breeze influence.

Ironically although the 12z GFS synoptics look a bit poor, it's still very nice for many areas. GFS often under-does maxima by 2-3C too, like today here and numerous times in warm spells. Apart from the GFS, I feel some concern about a slight easterly drift could be a bit over-done (or at least be IMBY). But then I guess an east or even NE flow favours here, and a SE/S breeze is when it's 'cooler' here relative to many. A lot of heatwaves/fine summer spells have a slight easterly drift at least some of the time. I can see it being a bit annoying in the east but then us in the W/SW often have to deal with an onshore flow I assume mushymanrob hasn't seen the ECM 12z as that shows both the chance of 30C in more than the far west (IMO), and a thundery breakdown next weekend. A lot of options seem to be on the table though by then (as is normal though). On another note I noticed how close the evolution of late June 1995 is to the current charts, including a brief toppler of cooler uppers on the 21st. Not sure how much significance that has though.

To be fair we have about the mildest winters, coolest summers, and lowest sunshine hours for anywhere at our latitude (excluding Ireland) and are often frustratingly close to better conditions on the continent. Also apart from our 'sunshine and showers' stuff I feel us being unusually changeable is possibly a myth, certainly temperature wise. We can go long periods with little more than bits of light rain, cloud and some sun. Nevertheless I'd prefer to live here than many arid climates e.g. California, possibly the med, and our narrow temp range for the latitude is in just about the right place for it to be possible to get snow with summers that are just about warm enough.

Yeah, I was a little disappointed in cloud (knew it was possible), but yesterday had a bit more sun and reached 24.0C. An extreme example but to put that into perspective, that's warmer than every single day in June 2012. Just checked Bournemouth, Monday reached 23.0C and yesterday 23.5C, with 5.3 and 6.4 hours of sun. not too poor. Only 1 day in June 2012 was warmer there, or even topped 21C!

Just thought I'd post, I noticed a slight discrepancy with the archive charts for that spell a few weeks ago. On Wetterzentrale, 850's are shown below 15C for that day where Southampton got 35.6C: Yet I remembered them being above 16C, so visited the Netweather Archive, and sure enough: A bit odd but tbh I believe the 2nd one more. I may be wrong as I suppose the extra dry ground could have helped but I don't recall temps being more than 20C above the 850's before, even in dry conditions. I tend to think of a difference around 15C-17C, perhaps 18C tops for sunny dry conditions under high pressure, and I'd probably want to see 850's up around 17C+ to consider the mid 30's. Just my thoughts though and hardly makes a difference to the output!

A drought-busting 0.6mm here today, bringing the monthly total to 0.8mm. Not a very good day though, overcast and only 14-15C up to 3pm. A slight wind direction change has warmed it up a few degrees since then with a chink of brightness at 4pm giving 18.5C.

Yes it does seem more certain to be dry than very warm/hot, as the high could be slightly to the west of the UK at times. Of course it may well set up over us or drift east bringing heat but that's too far off to know at the moment.

Looks like getting off to a good start if the current model trends (and further outlook, contingency planers, seasonal maps from the Met Office etc) are correct June is currently 1.6C above the full month's average here. Some cool nights could bring that down a tad later this week but with today's 0.6mm of rain bringing my monthly total to 0.8mm (and the 35 day total to about 17mm), I think the story at least down here could well be dryness, with the model output consistently showing little rain.

I recall a few April's ago (possibly 2015?) there were higher than usual UV readings for the time of year with 6's and 7's recorded. The Met Office released something about this even though their forecasts were just giving 4's and 5's still. The higher UV was shown on www.temis.nl due to a 'plume' of lower ozone concentration from the SW. I had noticed the site seemed to show more variation in clear-sky UV due to ozone variability, however the Met Office forecasts looked more as if they just use the normal UV for the time of year and expected cloudiness. Can't say if that really was the case though, and they could have improved now. Given that I'd have thought 9 could have been recorded before but don't know how I'd find out. A nearby Davis stations with a UV sensor show 7.8 as the highest this year (accuracy unknown).

We had a brief shower at about 8:40 which briefly dampened the tarmac! Sunny intervals now and breezy from the NW, been a while since that has happened. Temp 18.2C from a low of 14.7C. Relatively normal conditions over the next week or so but it does seem like we're in quite a dry spell. 0.2mm this month and 16mm in the last 33 days here. The forecasts/models don't show much sign of rain down here apart from some showers possible on Saturday.

it's an interesting analysis by Summer Blizzard, although I may be tempted to put more weighting on what the seasonal forecasts etc are suggesting for this year, as that's a small sample size that could just be coincidence. It does appear of numerical prediction systems, including the Met Offices probability maps and reflected in their contingency planners forecast show a increased chance of more high pressure and drier/warmer than normal conditions, and global teleconnections appear that they might be supportive given updates from the likes of Tamera. Of course there's a chance of a wetter and cooler summer still, and it's probably not worth losing sleep over what either method shows.

I got back home to Devon yesterday and it was a stunning day with just a few patches of cumulus and a max of 26.2C, which is the warmest of the year by 0.1C. We can be favoured with N/NE winds, although even so the synoptic chart didn't look quite as good on face value as the conditions actually were. Mostly cloudy today although it still reached 22.8C earlier but dropped closer to 20C after 2pm.

Were you (and maybe some others) on holiday during May? The recent pattern has been bringing more cloud in the east at times but it didn't seem to do the east any disadvantages in May - in fact the SW saw some of the lowest totals but I still thought it was a good month down here. I've actually been in the Peak District since Monday and it has been mixed fortunes, some cloudy days some sunny. Also been mixed fortunes at home (but warmer at times, the cloud in the south is mainly due to low pressure over the near continent). However, an E/NE surface flow can actually mean we're one of the warmest places at home (and in a southerly we'd be one of the cooler places).

Tbh I never really saw it for the SW or at least Devon (Somerset upwards perhaps), at least not 'severe thunderstorms'. Not much even showed heavy rain, including the Met Offices location forecast and map. The ECM 00z seemed to though which could be in part why the Met Office included coastal E Devon in their amber warning, but even so it would have to have been elevated (onshore wind as forecast and low cloud), but there's barely any CAPE at any level of the atmosphere down here.

Had a bit of light rain here this afternoon, but otherwise just misty low cloud clearing to flat mid level cloud this afternoon, brief sunshine about 4pm when the temp rose to 19.7c Onshore wind so definitely no surface based storms expected here. The Met Office could have used the ECM 00z output in deciding to extend the amber warning to cover my area, otherwise I've seen little sign of any intense rain (let alone 'severe thunderstorms') here, including on their own map and location forecast.

Well we had some moderate rain early yesterday morning but I didn't expect anything else. I'm not expecting anything for me today, despite some forecasts having me surprisingly close to/in a significant risk area. Onshore breeze here so nothing surface based, little CAPE at any level for me today and tonight which to me suggests maybe some rain/showers from decaying or weak elevated convection and the precip charts seem to agree. The Met Office still talk about thunderstorms, hail and lightning for the SW without saying anything about the distribution. However they have forecast the risk of thunderstorms, and sometimes 'disruption' most days including Tuesday night, and on Sunday when it seemed clear the SW was unlikely to get any. Ah well. I hope to never hear any more posts saying the SW gets more storms than the SE etc Could be good for some though.

We did get a coupe of thunderstorms on Saturday evening with brief downpours, though not as intense as some parts of the country saw. It reached 26.1C yesterday with some cumulus bubbling around, but no storms formed. Generally cloudy today, with a maximum of 20.3C. Still 17.7C at 23:35 though. I don't really think there will be any thunderstorms this way tonight but maybe some rain with heavy outbreaks embedded. You never know though.