Long range forecast
Wednesday 15 Jul - Friday 24 Jul
High pressure to the northeast of the UK with low pressure over the Bay of Biscay starts the period with broadly settled weather for the north of the UK with a risk of thunderstorms into the south of the UK from France at times. Through the weekend potentially turning more unsettled from the south before more settled conditions arrive from the west. Uncertain into the next week as cloud and longer spells of rain threaten the NW and possibly running through the UK at times. Temperatures will be warm or very warm initially, perhaps hot at times in the southwest, likely easing to warm or near average over the weekend, though further hot spells possible especially in the south..
Friday 24 Jul - Friday 7 Aug
The signal through the end of July and into August becomes increasingly mixed with spells of low pressure and more unsettled weather becoming more likely. There may still be some thunderstorms at times as well. There will still probably be some dry interludes, most probably in the south and southeast. Temperatures are likely to remain warm or very warm and some spells of hot weather remain possible.
Why isn't there more detail in the long range forecast?
Ever wondered why our forecasts for 5 days and beyond are written on the scale of the UK as a whole? When looking at forecasts beyond five days into the future the chaotic nature of the atmosphere starts to come into play - small events currently over the Atlantic can have potentially significant impacts on our weather in the UK in several days' time. Therefore, whilst we can still forecast the general feel of the weather to a relatively high level of accuracy using our ensemble models, it becomes harder to offer local detail to as high a level of accuracy as our shorter range forecasts. For this reason, our text forecasts for 5 days and beyond are written on the scale of the UK as a whole.
Our long-range forecast (which is updated on a daily basis) provides an indication of how the weather might change, or be different from normal, (i.e. warmer, colder, wetter, drier) across the whole UK. Met Office meteorologists consider output from a range of weather models when writing these forecasts. These models include those from the Met Office as well as models from other global forecasting centres such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts ( ECMWF).