What weather for the start of August?
As July draws to a close in a week’s time, I thought I’d take a look ahead at what the start of August will offer – especially as school summer holidays are now underway.
There is no doubt that July is going to end up warmer and drier than average, thanks to high pressure building over the UK, bringing the best spell of prolonged summer weather for many years.
The temperature reached 33.5C at Heathrow airport a few days ago, not only making it the hottest day of the year so far, but the hottest day that the UK has experienced since 20 July 2006.
Our recent heatwave also gave us 19 days in a row where the temperature reached 28C or above – something that last happened in August 1997.
Once again, it was the position of the jet stream that gave us the fine weather. Sitting north of the UK, it took the cloud and rain towards Iceland, leaving us to bask in hot summer sunshine.
What does the start of August hold?
The clear message that seems to be coming from the various weather computer models is that the weather is going to be much more changeable for the next few weeks.
This is because the jet stream is going to move southwards again. However, don’t worry, it’s not going to get stuck, it is going to wiggle around over or close to the UK.
So, what does this mean? Well, it simply means that the weather will change from day to day, rather than get stuck in a rut.
As the jet stream wiggles north, plumes of hot air will give us occasional hot days, but when the jet stream wiggles south, cooler air will move over us, with rain or showers.
In a nutshell, the start of August isn’t a write-off, it’s just simply a case that the weather will be more changeable from day to day than what we’ve been used to through July.
Return of the International Space Station
This week sees the return of the very popular International Space Station passing over the UK.
However, the pass times are pretty unsociable this time around – generally taking place between 1-4am.
If you are a night owl or an early bird, then you can see a list of the pass times here.
In the meantime, you can get the latest forecast on the Channel 4 Weather website. I also post regular updates on Twitter – @liamdutton