On Jul 19, 11:04*am, "Jim Smith" wrote:
"Dawlish" wrote in message

...





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!

It always worries me when, after a reasonable start to summer, it takes a
turn for the worse end of June/beginning of July with the jet waking up etc.
It happened in 1988, for example, and again last year. (OK this July has not
been quite as bad as 1988, but even when the weather has been ok, it has
been unpleasantly windy, just like last year)
When it breaks at that time, it often stays broke and gut feeling tells me
we may have to wait till the 2nd half of August for any real improvement. It
remains to be seen whether we break the 80f mark this year here - the year's
high remains at 26.1c. (In fact we have had just one day over the 80f mark
since the end of July 2006 - 3 years ago)

Poor.

Jim, Bournemouth- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Never trust weather models at T240+ I say! Some hints of changes at
the month's end. I hope this augurs some better weather, actually from
Saturday onwards for many areas, but a continuation of decent weather
much past the weekend is not certain, by any means......yet. However,
there are far less depressing possibilities now than only 30 hours ago
when I started this thread - (the feigned negativity, inviting a
retaliatory change of pattern from the weather god, worked it's magic
then!!) *))

Since yesterday evening, the gfs output has been changing from
unremittingly dire to something better. No good without a similar
change from the ECM mind. There were hints that the azores high could
ridge from the ECM yesterday and it too shows sunny, warm weather in
the coming weekend for nearly all areas, but the ridge it shows is, as
yet, transitory. I hope the gfs has the pattern change, but it's too
early to call on this one.