Golfers not only ones to suffer an unsettled July
PITY those poor golfers at Royal Birkdale, battling not only the course and each other in pursuit of the British Open today, but also our changeable weather. And that unpredictable mixture of blustery winds, showers and bursts of bright sunshine that they look likely to experience over all four days of the championship mirrors what the rest of us will have to endure in this cooler than average middle to late spell of July.
After the searing heat of the early part of the month, it has turned much more unsettled of late, with flash floods in Cornwall and Lancashire. The best of today’s temperatures will be in London and the South East at 72F (22C). Norwich, Glasgow and Cardiff will manage 66F (19C).
The low pressure dominating affairs will slowly drift off into the North Sea as the weekend ends, but will continue to hang around along the eastern seaboard on Monday, with rain and wind from Edinburgh to East Anglia. Over in the west, it will be quieter and a touch milder.
As Monday gives way to Tuesday, we should all get a brief taste of high pressure, and a short-lived return to dry, warm conditions, but by Wednesday the low is likely to be back. Rain will head in off the Atlantic to the north and west, and eventually make its presence felt everywhere.
Not quite what we expect of summer, but somehow par for the course once the school holidays begin. Last month, when our children were still cooped up in classrooms, it was another story. Data has shown that, around the globe, June 2017 was the third hottest on record, down a notch on 2016 and 2015 which hold the number one and number two spots.