Have you heard there is a heatwave on the way? “Blistering 35C Mediterranean heatwave heads for Britain” ran one headline and there have been a lot of other stories on a scorching hot spell about to arrive. Is this just wishful thinking after plenty of fairly miserable weather since the school holidays began or is there really some truth to it?
One thing for sure is that there is no sign of a heatwave over the next few days. There have been some hefty downpours this week, with more heavy rain due today, tomorrow and Saturday, and it will also be fairly cool and breezy.
Low pressure is in charge and it is not moving much because a loop in the jet stream is helping to lock it in place over the UK. However, by Sunday the low will start to fade away and conditions will turn drier, although the temperature will be about average.
So where did all the talk of a heatwave come from? There is a large high-pressure system in the Atlantic and there is a chance that an anticyclone will try to edge into the UK and settle the weather some time next week. Is this the start of the much-hyped heatwave? That is unlikely because the winds will sweep in off the Atlantic and will be only moderately warm, unlike the July heatwave.
The rumours of a heatwave certainly did not come from the Met Office. More likely the internet is to blame with widely available, long-range weather-forecast computer models stretching two weeks ahead, but these need to be treated with great caution. Forecasting so far ahead can be unreliable and change dramatically as different runs of forecast models can throw up some wild results.
Advertisement
To get a better picture, several computer models need to be looked at and run several times over with slightly different data. That gives the likelihood of what weather to expect, without being too specific. Most importantly, these long-range forecasts give an idea of how much confidence there is in the outcome.
