London Olympics weather past and present

With just days to go until the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics, there’s no doubt that all eyes will be on the skies to see what the weather will bring. Will the hot sunshine continue or will the weather be typically British and offer something a little more average?

Before I get on to what the weather will do in the future, I thought I’d take a journey back in time to see what the weather did during the last Olympics held in London way back in 1948.

Given that us Brits are renowned for our weather, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the weather back then was pretty mixed!

London 1948 weather

The 1948 games started off with a heat wave, with the first six days recording a temperature in London of 27C or above. In fact for three days in a row in the first week, the temperature reached 32.8C – the hottest days of the games.

This may have been great for those spectating, but maybe not for the athletes – especially those taking part in the more enduring events. As you would expect, the sun shone for much of the time, with 8 to 13 hours of sunshine measured each day.

However, in the second week, the weather had a change of heart as low pressure brought more unsettled conditions with cloud and rain.

For five days in a row, grey leaden skies dominated with just 15 minutes of sunshine measured over the space of five days. This was also the wettest spell of the games with around 40mm of rain falling in one day on 6 August.

The final week was characterised by poor weather for August. Temperatures struggled to reach 20C, there was a lack of sunshine and most days had a little bit of rain.

London 2012 weather

With sunshine and warmth having arrived in London and other parts of the UK in recent days, the big question on everyone’s mind is, will it last?

For the next few days in the run up to the opening ceremony, the sunshine and heat will continue across London and much of England and Wales, with temperatures reaching as high as 30C on Tuesday and Wednesday.

However, at the end of the week the weather will turn more unsettled from the north west as a weather front moves southwards across the UK. As this engages with the heat, it is likely to generate some heavy, thundery showers.

Predicting exactly where showers will occur four days in advance is notoriously difficult. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to say that at this stage there is a possibility of heavy showers for the opening ceremony on Friday evening.

Beyond Friday and into the first week of the games, the weather will turn cooler and more mixed with sunshine and showers becoming the main theme in London and for the rest of the UK.

On a more positive note, there is one thing that looks fairly certain – we are unlikely to see a return to the very unseasonable weather that we have seen in recent months in terms of well above average rainfall.

So whilst the weather may not be perfect for the first week of the Olympics, it certainly looks to be nothing more than typically British – much like it was back in 1948.

Don’t forget you can get the latest forecast for the next five days on the Channel 4 Weather website. You can also follow me on Twitter for regular weather updates – @liamdutton