Keep your brolly at the ready – but June is drying up
You may have been worrying about your garden not getting enough rain, but after the week we have just had you are probably now more concerned about it getting too much.
For the people of Wainfleet All Saints in Lincolnshire, it has turned into something more serious, when two months of rain fell in two days, causing a break in the embankment on the River Steeping in this low-lying area, and flooding homes.
Today, that seemingly endless deluge will morph into something more familiar, and more pleasant – sunshine and showers. Better still, a switch in wind direction from chilly north-westerlies to mild southwesterlies will mean that temperatures will rise up to something that has at least a hint of summer about it. East Anglia, London, the South East and the East Midlands will see 66F (19C).
Over in the west Cardiff will manage 64F (18C), Edinburgh and Glasgow at 61F (16C) and Belfast down at 59F (15C).
In the week ahead, high pressure will slowly push in, bringing settled, drier, warmer weather to replace the rain and gloom. Tuesday is looking like the pick of the bunch at the moment, with temperatures up to 75F (24C) thanks to warm air from Europe.
The drying up process can, at last, get going in earnest. But that still won’t displace this June as odds-on to be the wettest on record. This dubious honour currently belongs to 2012, when 5.7in (145.3mm) fell.
And when it rains, there doesn’t tend to be much sunshine. Again, June 2012 sets a benchmark, as the second dullest on record with just 119.2 hours of sunshine. 2019 may well have two records in sight, but lets hope for our own sakes that it doesn’t happen.