Miserable July to end with weekend of even more torrential rain
Brits are being told to grab their umbrellas and switch on their dehumidifiers this weekend as rain is set to blanket the country.
The Met Office has forecast ’heavy and perhaps thundery showers’ this weekend, with more ‘organised rain’ expected on Sunday.
It’ll cap off a week of ‘patchy’ and ‘persistent’ rain as Britain continues to buck the heatwaves suffocating southern Europe, North America, North Africa and Asia.
Today will see clear skies for most with only a few showers hovering above Scotland and Northern Ireland before clouds float in from the west.
But the Met Office stresses this is ‘at first’. Its rainfall map shows the nation being blanketed by rain, with up 50mm feared to bucket down within 24 hours.
Rain will ‘reach all but the far northwest by evening’, the weather service adds, as it shows the weather front of torrential rain arriving by about 2pm.
Half of Britain will be engulfed by 6pm and near enough completely by 11:45pm, with heavier downpours expected in the north and east.
The rain will be paired up with ‘extensive hill fog’. Though the Met Office says it’ll be ‘warm overnight for many’.
Tomorrow will see the dreary downpours continue, ‘especially on west-facing coasts and hills’, and now joined by thick humidity making it feel damp.
Though Friday will be drier – by today’s standards, at least – as heavy and thundery showers will crash into the country on Saturday and Sunday.
When it’s sunny though, the Met Office says, it’ll be warm. This is down to a low-pressure system from the Atlantic creeping closer to the country, according to Net Weather.
Get used to it, the Met Office says, as the end of July will see slightly cooler than average temperatures and drab weather.
‘The end of July is likely to remain unsettled with showers, perhaps heavy and thundery, especially in the north, giving way to longer spells of rain,’ the weather agency says.
‘Often quite windy as well, especially for the time of year, with southern areas probably seeing the strongest winds.’
The Met Office’s long-range forecast shows little change of Britain being baked by 40°C heat this summer – but that doesn’t mean it won’t ever happen.
As humans continue to burn fossil fuels, the extreme heat frying Europe, breaking temperature records, igniting wildfires and bringing thunderous storms are ‘virtually impossible’ without climate change, experts said Wednesday.
Wildfires kindled by weeks of hot and dry conditions have torn through Spain’s Canary Islands, Greece and Portugal.
The UK, climate and urban design experts and fire officials previously told Metor.co.uk, is not prepared for such extreme heat.
The Met Office will soon publish this year’s State of the UK Climate report. Last year’s edition recorded temperatures of over 40°C for the first time as well as wildfires and heat-related deaths.
Oli Claydon, from the Met Office, said yesterday that the mercury rising to the 40s is seen as ‘extreme’ for Britain but will grow more likely as the years come and go.
‘The likelihood of exceeding it going forward somewhere in the UK in a given year,’ he said, ‘is now increasing due to human-induced climate change.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.