On Apr 8, 8:15*am, "Will Hand" wrote:
"Col" wrote in message

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"Will Hand" wrote in message
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"Col" wrote in message
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But surely that is covering all bases?
Low pressure giving a wet summer, high pressure giving a dry summer
or a mixture of the two?

Not really Col. It could be a zonal summer, i.e. changeable with at most
3 fine days on the run like the 1960s. It all depends where the block
sits. Progressive blocking would give long dry spells in the south,
interspersed with weak, forward sloping cold fronts. Obviously wetter
further north. But who knows? I don't.

Well to me 'blocked' means high pressure on or close to the UK, keeping
Atlantic fronts at bay. Surely if we take Europe as a whole there is
pretty
much always going to be blocking in one place or another.

The centre of high pressure or low pressure blocks can be a 1000 miles away
from UK and we still say (at least where I work) that it is a blocked
situation for the UK. Good grief in winter you get Russian 1050 hPa
anticyclones extending west and we still call it blocked for the UK.
Likewise persistent low pressure over the Azores would give blocked
conditions over the UK. Blocking refers to the general circulation in the
Atlantic basin for the UK. The trouble is we haven't seen *proper* raging
persistent zonality for many many years now in the Atlantic and people are
forgetting what it looks like!

Will
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"Proper, raging, persitent zonality requires an anticyclone to be
within 1000 miles, centred over Europe. i.e. for zonality, you require
blocking, by your definition, Will.

1000 miles south from London, puts you swimming in the Mediterranean.
1000 miles south from Haytor puts you in Algeria!

As Col says, your musings on the run-up to summer have every base
covered. Even if we have "raging zonality", you will be correct.