If only Team GB could bring back the Rio weather
JUST when we thought something resembling summer had finally arrived, it is about to be snatched away. Late July was hardly wall-to-wall sunshine but at least most of us could go to work in the morning without wondering if we needed a coat. However, as the school holidays kick in, the warmth will become more intermittent – like a car radio signal as you drive through the Brecon Beacons.
At first the change will be hardly discernible. Today temperatures will remain pleasantly high – 72F (22C) in the South East, 61F (16C) in Edinburgh. It will be largely dry, with just the occasional shower while that nighttime humidity, the bane of insomniacs in the south, will drift off towards the Continent, from whence it came.
If that sounds pretty benign, wait for Tuesday evening when the wind from the Atlantic will get up, starting in the South West. By Wednesday, a band of heavy rain will pass over the country. It won’t get especially cool – with temperatures still touching 68F (20C) in places – but the jet stream of fast-flowing air currents in the high atmosphere moving west to east will zig-zag over us, one minute letting in the warm air from the south, the next making room for colder, wetter conditions from the north.
It is hard to predict who will be getting what at any one moment, but the likelihood is that we will all see a bit of both in the week ahead.
For those staying in to watch the Rio Olympics, the sobering thought is that the warm sunshine of 79F (26C), minimal rainfall and low humidity down in Brazil is actually their winter. Would that Team GB athletes could bring a bit of that back with them, along with a haul of gold medals.