My halfpennyworth.
I have an increasing amount of faith in the reasoning and implications
in this paper

https://www.researchgate.net/profile...tal-Storms.pdf


3 elements of NOAA SST anomaly gradients over the North Atlantic
correlating with storms for the UK.
My enumeration of it, came back to life for Storm Hector and has now
dropped back again.
For the current month prognostications , roughly the SST anomaly
gradient along the 50th parallel.
Just sampling every 10 days or so (NOAA output only Mon and Thur anyway)
from the present backwards, looking only at the Norwegan Sea part of the
very North Atlantic. I've gone back to October 2017 and nothing but
"yellow and orange" + territory on these outputs

http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Products/ocean/sst/anomaly/

If the eastern end SST +anomaly of the 50th is an attractor for UK
storms (relative to the Grand Banks) then the storms could be attracted
north of the UK, if this mechanism was valid more widely.
Obviously its a gradient required for this and I've ignored (for this
first pass) the situation at the Grand Banks which has been a lot more
variable over those months , but perhaps warrants further study.

Perhaps there is something in this Norwegan Sea SST anomaly stuff as
well as the UK waters attractor (if +).
NOAA is giving at least the southern part of that Sea , deeper "blue".
Conjecture from that is, what lows coming across the Atlantic are more
likely to go more for the UK, unless UK waters go a deeper "blue" of course.
GFS has decided some lows of 01-02 and 07 July will have enough oomph to
barge into the Azores High, consistent with that?