I'm sure I'm not alone in following the various weather models on a
dialy basis and seeing that enormous long-wave trough constantly being
shown digging in at our longitude and wondering when it will shift.
The hunches of a week, or so, ago are looking closer to becoming a
depressing outcome - certainly regarding the rest of July.

Yesterday, the ECM showed a chink of warm sunshine T240, with the
Azores high ridging towards us and percieved wisdom is that the ECM is
generally more accurate at a week+ than the gfs (it certainly is out
to 6 days, but there are no comparison figures for 7-10 days and I
don't subscribe to that "wisdom" as a result). Today, the ECM at 10
days shows the familiar depressing pattern of low pressures slowly
crossing the UK with the briefest of ridges producing warmth and
sunshine. It has come back into line with what the gfs is showing -
unsettled, wet and cool to 10 days for many of us; the SE faring
better than the NW in a zonal, Atlantic-dominated flow.

Persistence is a clue to late summer, as has been commented on. I'd go
with short odds on the second half of the summer being cooler than the
first half, based on the current models and the weighting of
persistence (i.e. more likely). However, I'd still go with odds above
evens for the whole summer being cooler than average (i.e. less
likely). The first half has been warmer than average and even foul set-
ups like this one don't seem to produce the summer cold that they used
to.

I also haven't changed my point of view that no-one really knows what
will happen with the weather past about 10 days.At this time of year,
extra-tropical ex-hurricanes can alter the dynamics of the northern
Atlantic synoptics and an, as yet unshown, shift in the pressure
patterns can change things completely.

Maybe I'm clutching at straws for the next 6 weeks, but the obvious
and great thing is that we won't know until late Aug what UK summer
2009 will actually have been like!