On Jul 6, 2:03*pm, "peter clarke" wrote:
The ending of the settled spell and the hot weather in late-June and early
July, and the much more cyclonic charts now, look suspiciously *like the
onset of the ' late summer weather regime'. I think this phrase may have
originated with H.H. Lamb. Does the current weather set the scene for the
type of weather pattern for the next few weeks?

Peter Clarke
Ewell, Epsom

It seems to vary year on year.

Last year was pretty poor up to the 20th, then we did get a window of
10 days hot, sunny weather.
2007 as we all know was rubbish until the 28th, then thankfully the
rest of the summer was better, apart from one week in mid August.
2006 was notably good though there was a deterioration in August.
In 2005 the opposite happened, the beginning of July was rubbish, then
there were about 10 days hot weather in the middle of the month
(coinciding with the imminent bad spell), but then the last week was
notably bad.
2004 I was out of the country though I gather that the first half was
bad, the second half much better.
In 2003, July was much the worst month of a generally good summer,
though there was a similar hot spell to 2005.
2002 and 2001 were similarly mixed.

So the answer is perhaps "not necessarily", though it does seem now
that we're unlikely to get a notably style summer. There does seem to
be an unfortunate tendency in recent years for summer "changeable"
spells to be cyclonic rather than the "westerly with highish pressure
to the south" type, with consequent very wet spells. The main thing in
the next week or so would seem to be unpleasantly (for some, I'd rate
day maxima of 20C as unpleasant this time of year) cool conditions.

Nick