This is an in-depth Met Office UK Weather forecast for the next week and beyond. Why has July been so wet and could things change next week?. Bringing you this deep dive is Met Office meteorologist Alex Deakin.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome along to the Met Office Deep Dive. This week we're asking will the
00:04fine warm sunny weather really last until September? Only joking. We are of
00:10course talking about rainfall and July so far how wet has it been and are
00:15there any signs of summer? I feel like we say that every week. We have found some
00:20heat on the other side of the Atlantic but it's probably not the kind of heat
00:25any of us would really enjoy. We'll be talking a little bit about extreme heat
00:28in the States and we'll be taking a look at what has happened to that
00:33record-breaking Hurricane Beryl. But we will be focusing first of all on the UK
00:38weather. Welcome along my name is Alex Deakin I'm a weather presenter and
00:43meteorologist here at Met Office HQ and you are watching the Deep Dive where we
00:48love to read your comments so please do keep them coming in. I'll be in the
00:54comments at about half past four this afternoon so I can react to some of the
00:59comments in there live but if you're not watching this before that don't worry
01:02about it do please put the comments in we do read them we love your feedback
01:05anything that you'd like us to talk about we've had quite a few comments
01:08from people saying they enjoy when we go around the world and talk about other
01:12parts of the world which is one of the reasons why we're looking a bit at the
01:15States in this week's Deep Dive. If you're not subscribed already please do
01:21that and do hit the like button as well that does us a big favor spreads the
01:26word gets us watched more and that enables us to make more of these kinds
01:31of videos which we do love doing. One thing many of us are not loving I know
01:36some people do like this kind of weather we get a lot of feedback around that but
01:39I know also a lot of people are very keen for some fine and sunny weather and
01:45we certainly haven't seen that recently July has been very wet the satellite
01:49image from the last few days just showing clumps of cloud moving up across
01:53the UK quite telling this is the satellite picture the infrared the view
01:57from space but actually can see just by the lines of the cloud where the jet
02:02stream is lying it's lying down to the south we can put the jet stream on just
02:07to prove that it's down here look this is the jet stream we had a hot spell we
02:12got to 30 degrees for the first time this year at the end of June and when
02:15that happened the jet stream was up here but now it's shifted back south and
02:20that's where it's been for most of July and well to be honest not a lot of sign
02:25of it shifting the jet stream is down here and it's the jet which develops and
02:29pushes low-pressure systems our way that's what we've got at the moment big
02:32air of low pressure it has been a pretty bleak morning across much of northern
02:36England now there's a thunderstorm warning out as well a rain drifting
02:40northwards any sign of a shift well as I said not really let's just skip forward
02:44a couple of days the jet is still down here on Wednesday Thursday it is still
02:49down here and even at the end of the week the jet is still south shifted let's
02:55go back to the end of the week so this is the picture into the weekends the jet
03:00stream is still down here of course the result a warm and a cold side to the jet
03:04it's the temperature contrast which drives the jet stream and you can see we
03:09are on the cool side of the jet for the rest of this week and into the weekend
03:13however we are seeing a subtle shift in the jet stream because if we just bring
03:19it back to where we are now notice it's digging in and developing this area of
03:23low pressure but actually once that's out of the way the jet is kind of
03:26flattening off a little bit and staying to the south so this low pressure let's
03:30take those temperatures off this low pressure doesn't really make it into the
03:35UK it flirts with the far south may bring some rain to the channel after a
03:39time but actually with the jet staying here and not really developing this low
03:44this is a big chunky area of high pressure and that will at least calm the
03:49weather down for many of us during the second half of this week remember even
03:55with that high pressure which does look like moving into the weekend high is
04:00still there because the jet is now taking the lows just a little further
04:04south we do have high pressure sitting close by to the UK when you've got high
04:08pressure means the air is generally sinking got low pressure at the moment
04:11the air is rising generating clouds generating rain so with high pressure
04:15pushing in slowly but surely it does look drier for the end of the week but
04:20we're still on that cold side of the jet so it ain't gonna be warm temperatures
04:25aren't gonna jump up spectacularly the the winds around this a high pressure
04:30let's take the jet stream off and put the surface winds on still generally
04:34coming down from the north so what we've got at the moment low pressure jet stream
04:40to the south cool and wet as we go towards the weekend it does at least
04:44look a little drier and of course this time of year heading towards the middle
04:48of summer with a bit of sunshine which we should see even though temperatures
04:52aren't gonna be spectacularly probably feel a little bit warmer as we head
04:55towards the weekend it certainly does look a bit drier as we head towards the
04:59weekend with this high pressure but notice those breezes still coming down
05:03from the north and still the potential for some showers it's not gonna be
05:06completely dry this weekend it just won't be as wet so the weekend is
05:09looking quite a bit drier let's take a look in fact at the rainfall so this is
05:13where we are today this weather front sitting across us that's the low
05:19pressure we saw earlier tangle of weather fronts through the course of the
05:23next 24 hours that pushes northwards but look in here in this zone so we've got
05:29the weather fronts bringing the more persistent bands of rain but what's
05:33happening today is the low pressure is moving north the weather fronts moving
05:38north taking the more persistent rain but in here actually what this low has
05:42done has drawn up some warmer air so in this zone here temperatures are getting
05:47up to 20 21 degrees under the rainy zone so southern Scotland Northern Ireland
05:53we're only at 15 or 16 degrees but what's happening now skies are actually
05:56after a wet start starting to brighten up over northern England and parts of
06:02Wales and the West Midlands so in this zone we've got the low pressure which
06:07means the air is rising and a bit of welly from the Sun is warming things up
06:11at the surface and that is all going to lift things up and that is going to
06:14generate some thundery showers in this zone as we go into the afternoon so just
06:19keeping our eyes peeled on this zone in here where there could be some
06:23thunderstorms breaking out some signs I saw earlier on the satellite picture of
06:28the clouds really starting to bubble up and that is why we have a yellow weather
06:35warning in place for these thundery showers in this zone now not everywhere
06:41in this zone covering northwest England's good part of Wales and down to
06:45the West Midlands not everywhere in that zone we'll see thunderstorms but that is
06:49the area most at risk as the low moves north the air rushes up some big
06:53thunderstorms likely Met Office yellow warning in place it'll be one of those
06:57it's a classic kind of summer situation where one place sees a torrential
07:01downpour five miles away it may be completely dry but if you're driving
07:04parts the M5 the M6 the M62 you could suddenly catch a really heavy
07:10downpour through the rest of the afternoon so we've just issued that
07:13warning in the past couple of hours you needed to see where things were
07:18developing to pinpoint that warning but we also have a warning here across
07:24northern Scotland now this is a slightly different beast this isn't for the
07:27thundery showers that are going to be hit and miss this is for the more
07:30persistent rain that is starting to appear now across northern Scotland so
07:36this rain band is tracking its way northwards let's fast forward to this
07:40evening and tonight and then pause it there because it kind of just spirals in
07:45see the low pressures now in here but this band of rain just keeps on coming
07:48and the winds are coming into here and so we are just going to get the rain
07:53lingering across northern Scotland it's going to start later this afternoon and
07:58continue overnight and continue in fact for much of tomorrow if we just scoot
08:03through the course of Wednesday notice quite heavy rain as well the yellow
08:07colors they're just filtering in for most of Wednesday morning let's take a
08:12look at that what that means in terms of rainfall totals let me get this right
08:16let's put the bars on we can tweak the map so that's what we're looking at at
08:22the moment three hourly rainfall totals this afternoon but if we fast forward to
08:2624 hours let's go to the end of Wednesday and put the 24-hour totals on
08:34there we go so these are the 24-hour rainfall totals till midnight Wednesday
08:41night it's a clock's gone sorry Rich is too quick for me on the camera there we
08:45go so these totals here northern parts of Scotland there's the key along there
08:49so some parts in there seeing 50 to maybe 75 millimeters of rain and that's
08:54over quite a broad area so you see these spikes here that's where
08:58potentially we're going to see some thundery showers across the south
09:01they'll be very much hit and miss very localized but that's a broad area
09:05that's going to see 12-hour rainfall totals of 50 to 75 millimeters of rain
09:11maybe I can put the 24-hour totals on yes so there's the 24-hour totals and
09:14again you've got some oranges in there across northern Scotland 75 millimeters
09:18of rain or more across northern Scotland and quite a wide range you can hardly see
09:23the map there can you but there's the Western Isles their Shetland is poking
09:26out getting away with it largely these are the columns for north eastern parts
09:31of Scotland particularly that Murray Coast with the wind coming in it's going
09:34to generate a lot of rain over the next day or so that warning starts tonight
09:39and goes until the end of Wednesday easily we could see 50 to maybe 70 75
09:45millimeters of rain that is likely to cause some disruption because it will
09:48just keep on coming throughout tomorrow so a couple of weather warnings do go
09:52and check out our app and our website for more details on those of course but
09:57that's just something we'll be keeping on over the next 24 hours after that it
10:01does look like calming down as we've already seen without it particularly
10:06warming up if you look at the temperatures for the next few days even
10:10by Friday with a bit of sunshine just struggling to get to average and notice
10:14with the breeze likely be coming in from the north those North Sea coasts likely
10:18to stay particularly cool so yeah we are talking about some drier and brighter
10:23and sunnier weather as we get towards the weekend but it's still on the cool
10:29side for sure some signs of something a little bit more optimistic perhaps as we
10:37go into next week I have more on that in just a moment but first of all let's
10:41take a quick look at what we've seen so far in July because it has been really
10:45remarkable June was a cool month June was cooler than May. May was a
10:50particularly warm month although I know many people didn't feel that way because
10:53it was biased across the northwest of Scotland and not that warm in the south
10:58but the opposite is now true of the July rain that is definitely biased across
11:03the south this is showing the rainfall accumulation so far through July up to
11:08and including yesterday's data so that's this does not include today's rainfall
11:14of which there is plenty as we have already seen you can see here how we are
11:18tracking compared to the average line that black line there the most the
11:23highest ever recorded in July is this orange line so a long way from that but
11:28actually we're pretty bang on the 90th percentile so we're 90% compared to
11:35average the 90th percentile so we're in the top top 10% for wettest July's at
11:42this stage still a long way to go plenty of things can change but that
11:47will jump up beyond that 90 90 percentile line with today's rain of
11:52that I am very confident indeed and it has been again not distributed evenly it
11:59never is of course but but this map is really quite interesting because it
12:02shows where we have seen close to July's rainfall already so this is again a
12:09cumulative a map of the rainfall so far we're only what this is up to
12:14yesterday so eight days worth so you wouldn't expect you'd only expect at
12:18this time to have seen around 26% of average so you'd expect if it was bang
12:23on average most of the map to be this darker shade of brown but it's not most
12:27of the map is the lighter shade of brown and there are chunks of it even across
12:30the Highlands but particularly across the south East Anglia down across the
12:34northern home counties down towards the southwest where we are already white
12:38southeast Wales as well and white means we are close to average between 75 and
12:42125 percent of the average rainfall for July and this is only of course for the
12:48first eight days so what just over a week in and some places have seen close
12:54to or actually above the average for this for the whole month of July and
13:00there's some stats for you again some of the home counties picking out there this
13:04is compared to the whole month's average how much rainfall we've seen
13:07Berkshire Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire have already seen their average and in
13:12the case of Berkshire and Oxfordshire a little bit more than their July average
13:16rainfall within the first eight days and quite a few places not far behind
13:20Bristol's a few of those places that I couldn't get on to this but I want to
13:23put greater London in there because that's really jumped up in the past
13:27couple of days 86% of their July rainfall and again that doesn't include
13:32today's rainfall statistics wanted to mention London specifically because
13:38there's a bit of a tennis event going on and just to highlight how wet it's been
13:43of course now they've got a couple of roofs so play has been able to continue
13:47but a lot the outside courts have been particularly soggy these are the
13:51rainfall amounts that we've recorded we use Kew Gardens as the rainfall for
13:56Wimbledon it's the nearest rainfall gauge that we have showing how much
14:00rainfall we have seen and you see that last Friday in particular wave that
14:05went across the south it was a wet day 26 or an inch of rain fell on Friday and
14:10many of the days have seen some rain the last couple of days in particular seen
14:14quite a bit of rainfall and 8.4 millimeters of rain nowhere near the
14:18wettest actually the wettest day recorded at Wimbledon was 62 millimeters
14:24of rain recorded many years ago and that was actually from a downpour so you get
14:29different flavors of downpours I guess at this time of year you're either going
14:34to get the fine and sunny weather either side of a torrential thunderstorm or
14:38you're going to get what we've seen this year the kind of more persistent rain
14:41which isn't perhaps as intense but is still obviously wet enough to cause some
14:46disruption Wimbledon's also shifted of course Wimbledon used to be a couple
14:49weeks earlier used to kind of finish the weekend that it started so it's
14:55tricky to compare direct Wimbledon's historically because it used to be a
14:59little bit earlier in time but yes it certainly has been a fairly damp
15:04Wimbledon so far the covers of the roofs will be needed for the next couple of
15:09days but with that high pressure moving in I'm reasonably optimistic that we
15:13should be okay for the finals weekend and actually I don't think we'll see too
15:17much rain maybe a shower or two on Friday but towards the weekend the
15:21weather should be settling down a little bit okay so it's been a wet July
15:27because of that south shifted jet stream it's been a cool July as well
15:31temperatures following on from June's cool trend continue to be below average
15:36as well where is the heat well there's various pockets of it around the world
15:40as you might imagine and let's try and find some because we need to be south of
15:46the jet stream there's the jet stream all the hot air is down towards the
15:50southeast across Europe and across northern parts of Africa again as you'd
15:54expect at this time of year but let's go further afield because there is some
15:58remarkable temperatures being recorded in the United States at the moment this
16:03is an area of high pressure sitting right over California that area of high
16:07pressure intense sunshine what they call in the States a heat dome where the heat
16:12just builds day on day here we've seen some remarkable temperatures recorded
16:16across this part of the world it's the hottest time of year anyway but
16:20temperatures are still 5 to 8 degrees above average and that is likely to
16:24continue with the heat in this part of the world under that area of high
16:28pressure for the next few days if anything we go through the heat is going
16:32to push a little further north up towards the northwest the United States
16:37and into western parts of Canada over the next few days as well let's take a
16:42look at some of the temperatures we can expect in this part of the world again
16:50nothing remarkable about the UK's temperatures but let's head to the
16:53States where we've got this zone of heat at the moment extends down to Mexico I
16:59should say that as well we've had incredible heat through it this
17:02throughout this year in parts of Mexico and that's where we're seeing the the
17:06top temperatures at the moment zoom in a little bit on that and then if we put
17:10the actual temperatures on we can just scroll around here from Phoenix look at
17:16that mid 40s peaking on Friday there even up towards parts of Utah we'll get
17:23into 40 degrees Celsius but also extending up here into what's that
17:29Washington Washington States up there isn't it you know mid to high 30s pretty
17:33unusual for them but the heat really peaking down here in California up on
17:39Friday up to 47 degrees Celsius and we've already seen extreme heat in this
17:45part of the world these are the messages that we're getting from the National
17:49Weather Service in the United States this is a map of where we're going to
17:53see the the heat index the purple is the extreme heat California into Nevada and
17:58Arizona again this is the hottest time of year in this part of the world so
18:04this is extreme beyond what's the average by you know five to six degrees
18:09Celsius even up to eight to ten in some locations but you can see also they've
18:13got this extreme heat potentially as far north as as Washington as well and we do
18:18know also parts of British Columbia are going to see the heat as well lots of
18:21decent advice on there the text I'm going to zoom in on that actually how
18:28the temperatures are forecast to cause problems over the next few days but just
18:32wanted to draw your attention to the all-time heat records that have been
18:35already been recorded Palm Springs in California 124 degrees Fahrenheit which
18:40I think is 51 Celsius off the top of my head I would check that out but my
18:46laptop has died and you don't want me to put my password in on that that will
18:50take too long so yeah I think it's 51 and Las Vegas 120 degrees Fahrenheit
18:56records don't go back huge amounts I don't think in Vegas but it is still an
19:00all-time record for them obviously it's a pretty hot place but that was just on
19:03the 7th so it's that Sunday 120 degrees Fahrenheit which I think is 40 49
19:10degrees Celsius I think for that part of the world so yeah that is pretty extreme
19:15if that's 49 then that must be yeah I think that is 51 maybe 52 so yeah
19:20temperatures high 40s low 50s of Celsius already and as we've seen that he is
19:26likely to continue at least for the next few days may start to ease as we go
19:30towards the end of the week but plenty of advice from the National Weather
19:34Service there in the United States about how to handle the heat and they haven't
19:39just had to handle the heat of course in the United States I want to show you
19:42this which is a thing of beauty this is from CIRA and I forget what that
19:50acronym means but it's something about atmospheric research check them out it's
19:54from Noah check them out on tick-tock this post is incredible it shows the
19:59various stages of Hurricane Beryl record-breaking hurricane first the
20:06earliest category for the earliest category 5 storm made a few landfalls
20:12fatal landfalls across parts of the Caribbean and yesterday made landfall in
20:19Texas by then it had weakened it was only a category 1 storm but just want to
20:26draw your attention to this because actually as it says there draw jaw
20:29dropping in here that's the eye of the storm now when you think of an eye of a
20:35storm I have a hurricane often people think of it as just being you know the
20:39book the Sun comes out all of a sudden you get into the middle of the eye and
20:42it's all calm and that is often the case but it's not always the case with Beryl
20:46really remarkable how particularly in this imagery here you can see what
20:53called meso vortices there are swirls within the center of that storm so it
21:01isn't just a spell of calm weather in the eye of the storm actually within
21:05that storm there are more things spinning around more vortices spinning
21:10around and they can actually generate even stronger winds than you get in the
21:13eye wall traditionally the eye wall is where you see the strongest winds within
21:17a hurricane and then it goes calm for a while as the eye passes over but not if
21:21you have these meso vortices in the middle of them which just spiral around
21:29and within there the winds if you hit one of the walls of those meso vortices
21:34the winds can be anything up to 10% stronger than the than in the wall so
21:38just incredible scenes there from the eye of storm Beryl and I want to
21:44highlight this because I hope you can see that which might be able to zoom in
21:48a little bit more on that but this is a paper from BAMS which looked at
21:54hurricane Isabel from many years ago about 20 years ago and you can see
22:00hopefully you can just see within that there is a there is a circulation within
22:03the middle and then within the outside there's like six other vortices going
22:08around that central vortices in the middle absolutely fascinating the eye of
22:12the storm in the middle of Isabel there so yeah some eyes of hurricanes the
22:16weather does go calm and you can see the blue sky up above but not all in the
22:21middle of there there are even more dangerous vortices spinning around that
22:26can generate even faster winds and actually that can also be a breeding
22:28ground for tornadoes in the middle of hurricanes as well so absolutely
22:33incredible footage there from the middle of storm hurricane Beryl X hurricane
22:39Beryl now but again you can just see those incredible look at that again go
22:43check out Sarah on tik-tok that's where that post was from but just different
22:48stages of development you can see the thunderstorms flashing away there as
22:51well and there's a one in a second yeah just as Beryl rapidly intensifying which
22:56was almost two weeks ago now out in the Atlantic there was last week's deep dive
23:02we had Julian on our hurricane expert and he and he was chatting to Julian so
23:07you can check that out if you didn't watch that last week which was really
23:10great insight into how Beryl affected the Caribbean and where storm Beryl came
23:15from but let's take a look at what is happening to Beryl now let's go over to
23:20the United States because there is the storm as we see it at the moment made
23:28landfall on Monday still bringing winds of 80 miles an hour think to the Texas
23:31coast for a lot of flooding there as well as a two-meter storm surge it hit
23:36in an area that's fairly used to seeing those kind of impacts but nevertheless
23:41it did cause some problems and there was incredible footage online again of that
23:45storm hitting and it's now moving northwards and will continue to track
23:49northwards notice now there's nowhere near as many isobars around it's a much
23:53weaker system in terms of its wind strength but it is still bringing with
23:57it just put the warmth it's still taking with it some of that tropical air so
24:01there's still quite a bit of warm air it's not as hot as the air over California but it's
24:04taking with it warm and moist tropical air with it as it pushes northwards so
24:09it is taking plenty of rainfall with it as it tracks northwards and we are still
24:13likely to see some flooding impacts as it as it moves up towards the Great
24:16Lakes and that heavier rain pushing in here it will become extra tropical I
24:21think later today still classed as a tropical depression last time I checked
24:25just before we went to recording but it is still it will become just a kind of
24:30standard low-pressure system or X X tropical depression as it tracks
24:34northwards and then well we'll see what happens with it it will interfere in
24:39some way with the jet stream potentially not likely to be as extreme or as
24:44creates a volatility in our weather as often these storms do because it's going
24:49extra tropical and going across land but it will still nevertheless have have
24:52impacts where we see the thunderstorms could impact the movement of the jet
24:56stream and that will of course introduce a bit more volatility bit more
24:59variability into the predictions for the UK weather for next week but
25:04interesting to see how that storm is going to track its way northwards no
25:08longer a hurricane no longer packing damaging winds but still potentially
25:12causing some flooding as it heads northwards with that wet weather
25:17marching in one more thing to show you as I just hinted at our weather
25:23becoming a bit more unpredictable as we go through next week this is the
25:27probabilistic pressure trend we show them a lot on the 10-day trend Aiden's
25:32doing tomorrow's 10-day trend I don't want to steal too much of his thunder
25:35but there are signs there are signs if we look far enough ahead of something a
25:42bit drier and a bit brighter but not the early part of next week so dates going
25:46forward along the top here previous model runs going down the side here blue
25:51is low pressure red is high pressure so low pressure is going to retake over our
25:56weather as we go into the early part of next week Sunday and Monday in
25:59particular looking down to the southwest in fact I can show you that on here can
26:03I if we just go back to our weather
26:13let's spin the globe around and take it forward so actually we talked about this
26:24high trying to topple in but there's still low pressure to the east and eyes
26:27are down here as we go towards the weekend or the back end of the weekend I
26:31think for as we go into Saturday Sunday then notice this low is starting to
26:44approach is that which is likely to bring us some wet weather Monday and
26:49Tuesday early part next week but ahead of it we could just start see
26:53temperatures coming up so for most the weekend is going to be cool but on
26:55Monday a hint that we could draw in a little bit of warmth ahead of this
26:59weather system but that is going to bring then it looks like some wetter
27:02weather as we go into next week but I want to show you this chart because just
27:08beyond that Wednesday Thursday Friday it does turn a little pinky red which
27:12suggests that higher pressure may return and it looks like if it does it could
27:19also bring some south or southwesterly breezes with it as well which would also
27:23bring some higher temperatures we've got the high pressure moving in at the end
27:27of this week but that's bringing is still keeping things cool so this could
27:30bring a little bit of warmth and some dry weather if that's your bag I know a
27:34lot of people don't want it to warm up and quite happy with the wet weather as
27:37it is but if you're after some signs of summer then that is a glimmer that's all
27:41it is at this stage because it's over a week away but at least some signs maybe
27:45some positivity there no doubt Aiden will have much more on that in the 10
27:50day trend tomorrow so don't forget to catch that and the best way to not
27:54forget of course is to hit subscribe if you hit subscribe right now then you'll
27:59get notifications when we do our new broadcasts which we're always trying to
28:04hone and we're always trying to fine-tune so that's why we love reading
28:08your comments so do please keep your comments coming in as I say I'll be in
28:11there later this afternoon so I'll be able to interact with some of you live
28:14if if you want to do that for a little bit but that's pretty much it from me
28:18for this week's deep dive thank you very much for watching do spread the love let
28:22everyone know not everyone knows that the Met Office is is doing this this is
28:26only on YouTube this deep dive so if you think you know someone another Met head
28:31who would be interested then then do share the love and do also give us a
28:34thumbs up hit that like button as well because that as I said that does do us a
28:37big favor as well but that's pretty much it from me enjoy the football enjoy the
28:42tennis and yes enjoy the rest of your week I'll see you again soon goodbye