Weather - "BBQ Summer"?

Well we see that the Met Office forecasts a "BBQ summer". Although I suspect that particular term came from a newspaper and not the Met.

Now, this is quite unusual for the Met office to really do such a long range forecast and I suspect that this has been a forced issue to compete with the commercial sites. Or, should I be more cynical and say it's government driven to send some good news out in all this doom and gloom. Conspiracy?

From my humble position (45+ years of weather observation) and not wishing to put a dampener on things; to make such a forecast that the majority will see as endless days of warm sunshine is like shooting yourself in the foot. It's true that we have progressed with fantastic technology but the reliability of forecasting more than 5 days ahead is shakey, 5 days is about as good as it gets, and even that quite often changes. So to attempt three months is a big big ask but great fun to monitor.

Of course there are trends and very reliable folk law that people can draw some very good signals from. Whether they would admit to that though is another question altogether. For instance, no sun spots and reduced solar flares with the reduced affect of the Pacific influence a Strong Azores high pressure and of course, "Ash before oak, summer will soak. Oak before ash summer will be a splash." I would assume the splash would mean we would have been larking about in the water; a swim in the Thames as we often did. Oh yes you ask, what is it this year? Oak or ash? Well it's Oak! Well that's how I see it, so there's a good start! Mind you, I am sure that has more to do with what sort of winter we have had and even the previous summer/autumn.

Here we go, putting my money where my mouth is. Yes, I think it will be a better summer. Not by some scientific approach though but a simple law of averages and trends. May will be good up until mid/end, then a lot of thundery activity. June will be very average and for some disappointing. July will see the hottest time of the year; 33°C!?! interspersed with some thundery activity. August will be good also with some very nice weather and in most places average to below average rainfall, apart from the odd places that will have intense showers or storms which will give that extra rainfall. This is for fun and will be interesting to watch. See you at the end of the summer for a "de-brief".

Thing to look for on a synoptic chart is how strong the Azores ridge is. This is the one big factor that makes us in the south have more chance of a good warm summer, but in the north a lot more cloud - especially on the west coast of northern Britain.