The UK Met Office (UKMO) has poured cold water on media reports today that Britain is heading toward the coolest and dullest summer for two decades.

Met officials say it is too early to say how this summer will compare to others in the record books once the summer is over.

“We still have 3 weeks of July and all of August to go before the end of summer, and there is still everything to play for”, a UKMO spokesperson commented Monday.

In a statement issued today the UKMO said: “We have had rather mixed conditions through June and the start of July with some fine warm, and even hot, days and some more unsettled, and very wet days as well. This is typical of summer in the UK when often you get several nice, warm days followed by several unsettled days with heavy showers. We should certainly not be surprised by this type of weather.

“For the UK, temperatures for June were actually bang on the long-term average, with sunshine and rainfall both a little above, although very close to what you would normally expect. Currently there are no figures for the UK for July as it is still so early in the month”, the statement added.

Irish Summer Prospects

Meanwhile, commenting on the prospects of an improvement in weather conditions at home, Irish Weather Online Senior Forecaster Peter O’Donnell stated: “Over the weekend just passed I would say that the global models have been “chopping and changing” in the period beyond a week to ten days, and there has been perhaps a downgrade of warming potential. However, these things have a way of fading in and out of model runs until a more definite signal is picked up by the models.

“My longer range forecast for warmth in late July was based more on research index values so that hasn’t changed much over time since the research index values are based on all of the historical data available. At the same time, users should appreciate that such techniques are not “carved in stone” and so the actual details may vary somewhat from forecast, as I think they did in June to some extent. Other forecasters using other methods are also flagging a warming trend in late July. Although the circulation has been stuck in a rather unsettled rut for the past week, on the whole there is nothing in the hemispheric set-up to say that this rather weak “trough” over Ireland is locked in for months.

“The fact that we’ve already seen two rather strong warm spells suggests to me that when we get to the warmest part of the summer in statistical terms, a longer warm spell is quite likely. So in other words, there should be some decent warmth to be had later in July and/or in the very early part of August. One feature that needs to shift to help adjust the jet stream further north would be a persistent blocking “high” over the north pole and the western arctic regions of Canada, which tends to support high pressure in Greenland also. If that weakens in a week to ten days, it’s likely that wave lengths will shorten and the trough now over Ireland will shift west to allow the Azores high to have more influence. This tendency is already showing up in modified form later this week, when some decent temperatures are possible, but this would not be the fully-developed warm spell or modified heat wave that many are looking for.

“Small steps instead, with perhaps another speed bump on the road to summer next weekend”, Peter added.

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