Thursday 24th June 2021

What, no football tonight? Well, I can offer you a meteorological own goal or two over the coming few days.

I left you on Monday evening with the idea that a barely-existing low pressure trough would move south-east overnight on Thursday, and bring some showers in the two days after – with an uncertain outlook, either the trough would move away or fade away and it would become very warm and sunny, or the trough would hang around and invigorate itself.

Alas, for those looking for a return to summer, the latter outcome is now expected.

Forecasting exactly when it will rain is going to be tricky until the trough is in place, and there is an understanding over how rain bands will spiral around – so my attempts at forecasting timings will be very general and subject to being wrong.

Don’t worry, summer will be back – and there is some fairly warm sunshine in the forecast too.

Thanks to Jonathan for the photograph.

This evening will be fairly cloudy, a scattered shower possible, overnight sees thicker cloud spread down from the north-west with some occasional rain, down to around 13’C.

Friday sees high pressure to our west, this sneaky low pressure trough forming over the east of England.

Friday starts with bits of showery rain, this will move east and a bit of sunshine will follow. The afternoon looks pleasant in terms of sunny spells, but there will be heavy showers breaking out in places, maybe around a 40% chance of catching one, but you’ll likely know about it if you do – a small chance of thunder too. 20’C, maybe 21’C is feasible. Clear spells overnight, some cloud at times and more likely towards the morning, a small chance of a stray shower, down to around 10’C.

Saturday should be pleasant though there is a shower risk. Reasonable amounts of sunny spells though a quite a bit of cloud, and around a 30% chance of a shower or two in the afternoon. Around 21’C. Overnight sees cloud push up from the south from our pesky trough now over France, perhaps with some patchy rain. Around 14’C.

Sunday is still uncertain. Rain will get to the south coast – it may get this far north, it may not. It likely starts cloudy either way and I think it is slightly more likely the main rain stays to our south. Assuming so, the sun will come out – but heavy, possibly thundery showers will break out in the afternoon and became the band of rain come the evening/overnight. Likely warm and a bit humid too, around 21’C. Likely cloudy overnight with some showery rain, around 14’C.

Monday sees the low pressure trough close to our south, and more of a feature than it was.

Details uncertain, but broadly speaking rather cloudy, some rain likely at some point – whether that be from showers or more general rain is uncertain. Some sunshine also possible, and temperatures somewhere between 18’C and 21’C.

I’m afraid Tuesday is beyond the realms of accurate forecasting at the moment, and will be for a couple more days due to the nature of this low pressure trough. It is very plausible that there is a spell of heavy rain – but likewise there is a fair chance that the low pressure trough might be far enough south for us to enjoy some warm sunshine instead.

I have fairly low confidence for Wednesday onwards, though I’d suggest a changeable and showery theme more likely, and perhaps a fairly wide range of temperatures – some cool days but also some very warm/humid days.

Once we get past the first weekend of July, there are fairly strong signals for the Azores High to build to bring more lengthy very warm/hot sunshine, for a time.

And I still expect much of the rest of July and August to be dominated by high pressure, though on average more often close to our west which reduces the chances of heatwave conditions compared to normal (like there will still be some very hot days), and will also allow for low pressure troughs to occasionally set up and bring showery/wet conditions for around 3-5 days, like this upcoming spell.

But overall, you should remember July and August as being mostly warm/very warm, often dry and often sunny.

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