Don’t worry – the shifting jet stream will bring warmth
Is this the new look for our Augusts – rain, low temperatures and a distinctly autumnal feel in the air? The grey skies and puddles have prompted plenty to suggest it, along with shifting our national holiday habits forward to benefit from those sizzling July days that are now only a distant memory.
Well, the coming week won’t settle the debate either way. After a wet and windy weekend, with some places set to get their full typical August rainfall allowance in just one day, things should start to look up as we head towards the bank holiday weekend. It might even feel like summer again.
Driving everything at the moment is our old friend – sometimes foe – the jet stream. So far this August it has, unusually, been positioning itself to the south of the UK, leaving us prey to low pressure systems from the west and north-west that bring in rain and winds on what can feel like a conveyor belt of gloom. And that is going to remain the picture today and into the working week.
Northern Ireland and Scotland will get the worst of the rain, but it will also spread further south into northern England. Nowhere will be immune to showers, and on southern and western coasts wind speeds may get up to 30-40mph. London and East Anglia will get the best of the temperatures – but that only means 68F (20C). Cardiff is 64F (18C), Belfast 63 (17C) and Glasgow and Edinburgh just 61F (16C).
But by Wednesday the jet stream is on the move, heading northwards – towards where it is meant to be in August. That will open the whole of the UK up to drawing in high pressure, meaning warmer winds, and no rain, from southern Europe. With luck, it could be with us by the weekend.