Some more warmer rain to come – a showery bank holiday, and maybe a taste of summer for later next week.

Thanks to Christel for the photograph.

So the general picture sees low pressure in charge over Germany/Netherlands, giving us rain at times, but also feeding warmer and more humid air from the east.

We start the day in this post thunderstorm world (actually an MCS – mesoscale convective system), with lots of claggy cloud and some mist. Weather models are quite bad at predicting the cloudy aftermath of such systems, as well as the development of them – we knew when I wrote on Monday that one would likely happen, but where would get lightning was only semi-apparent a few hours before, and even then uncertain. Confirm I had some lightning here in Croydon around 2:30am, frequent but only for 10-15 minutes. I went back to bed!

Anyway, weather for today. Cloudy and misty to start. Likely it stays cloudy for much of the day, and fairly humid, reaching around 15’C. However if the sun comes out, even a for a short time in the afternoon, then heavy, thundery showers will quickly break out (and 20’C would become possible) – as it stands it is more likely to remain cloudy here, but it is a close call – 30 miles further north and I’d call it the other way. The heavy showers to our north may slip south to us in the evening, a small chance of thunder mixed in, and further showery rain will develop and spread up from the continent later in the evening and overnight – perhaps heavy, unlikely thundery but not impossible. Around 9’C overnight.

Friday will be cloudy with further showery rain at times, perhaps heavy, a small chance of it being thundery at times. Gradually it will shift north, but likely taking until the afternoon, if not early evening to clear. Perhaps some sunshine to end, depending on the timing of the rain clearing. Around 11’C – if we get a sunny 2-3 hours to end then we may see 15’C or so. Clear skies overnight, down to around 5’C – a chance of some mist/fog patches by dawn.

Saturday looks reasonable. Sunny spells, variable amounts of cloud – probably more cloud than sunshine overall, though some uncertainty. A few scattered showers likely develop, perhaps on the heavy side, say a 50% chance of catching one or two. Around 17’C so quite warm.

Saturday night into Sunday is uncertain.

Broadly speaking, there is a little low pressure system that moves up overnight and into Sunday. However, all the weather models develop this differently – the one I trust most, the European model, keeps it fairly weak, with some hazy sunshine and some occasional showers for Sunday.

Yet the Met Office model develops it quite significantly, with spells of heavy/very heavy rain overnight on Saturday and into Sunday (the Met Office model is also keen on more frequent showers for Saturday, than I’m currently forecasting), perhaps thundery.

Other models have a mixture of outcomes…there isn’t really a pattern yet.

So I guess, a vague forecast for Sunday would have to be sunny spells and showers more likely, but with a risk of a spell of general rain. Temperatures more likely 16’C to 18’C, but if it rains instead then closer to 12’C.

Best I can do right now.

Bank holiday Monday most likely sees further showers or showery rain – temperatures somewhere in the region of 13’C to 16’C.

We should see high pressure build from Tuesday onwards – not a done deal but the most likely outcome. This would allow some sunshine, perhaps long spells of sunshine by the end of next week and into the weekend. Crazy, huh?

Temperatures also should warm up, perhaps cooler on Wednesday, but Friday into Sunday more likely are warm/very warm then otherwise – this is also not a done deal, something cool/average is possible instead, but I’d say 70/30 in favour of warm.

All being well, we might be calling it our first taste of summer.

Enjoy the bank holiday weekend…I hope you see at least a bit of sunshine!