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A beach hut in Great Yarmouth. Photograph: Graham Turner
Britons
can look forward to a slightly warmer summer this year after last
year's washout, according to the first seasonal forecast by the Met
Office yesterday. The forecasters added, however, that the summer could
still be wetter than average, though they said the risk of a repeat of
the extreme flooding last year was low.
The Met Office
forecasters stressed that nothing could be ruled out so far in advance,
no doubt mindful of the risks of being lambasted for getting it wrong.
Brian
Golding, head of forecasting, said that in many ways the seasonal
forecast heralded a typical British summer. "The old country definition
used to be three fine days and a thunderstorm. If you think of that
sort of weather system, the indications we have at the moment don't
suggest anything wildly different from that, but perhaps the unsettled
spells might come through more frequently than in an average summer."
Indications are that Europe as a whole will have a warmer than average
summer, compared with a baseline average temperature of 14.1C measured
from 1971-2000. In terms of rainfall, we can expect it to be average or
above average in north-west Europe and drier than average over
south-east Europe. The baseline average across the UK between 1971-2000
is 226.9mm (around 9ins).
Last year the average UK temperature
was around average (14.13C) but the average rainfall ended up being the
highest on record (about 357.1mm), swamping much of Yorkshire, the
Midlands and the West Country and leaving thousands homeless. The Met
Office's seasonal forecast at this time last year gave no warning of
what was to come, saying there was "no indication of a particularly dry
or a particularly wet summer" in 2007. "Last year's forecast did not
predict an exceptional summer," said Golding. "The seasonal forecasting
techniques are not capable at present of predicting exceptional
conditions."
He added that the optimism this year was down to
several factors, including the Atlantic jet stream, which is an
important factor in summer weather. "The forecast we have for the
summer does indicate a strengthened jet stream and that would be
consistent with more changeable weather. [But] there is no indication
in the forecast of any shift in the position of the jet stream and that
is what caused the extended spell of very wet weather last summer."
This
year's forecast also reflects the changing climate of the UK. "We note
that every year in the last 10 years has been as warm as the average of
the temperature above north-west Europe," said Golding. "It would be an
unusual summer to have a below-average temperature."
Driving the
weather are above-average temperatures in the seas around the UK and a
good deal of westerly wind predicted to come from the Atlantic.
Rob
Varley, government services director at the Met Office, said the
seasonal forecast is generally not meant for people to plan their
summer holidays but rather is a tool for authorities and firms that
need to plan for the future. "Our long-range forecasts are proving
useful to a range of people, such as emergency planners and the water
industry, in order to help them plan ahead. They are not forecasts
which can be used to plan a summer holiday or inform an outdoor event."
The Met Office will update its forecast in a month's time.
Did they get it wrong last year?
Last
year's extreme rainfall had many Britons asking why the Met Office had
earlier said there was "no indication of a particularly dry or a
particularly wet summer" in 2007.
Rob Varley, government
services director at the Met Office, said it was impossible with
current technology to predict specific weather events more than a few
days in advance. "If you look at the text of the summer forecast this
time last year and then you look at how that was translated into an
understanding in people's minds ... there was a misunderstanding of
what we were able to predict at that stage. This time last year we
predicted a warmer than average summer and it was warmer than average,
just. It's a question of what you can conclude from this at an early
stage and what you can't."
The extreme rainfall in flood-hit
areas last year was predicted very accurately by the Met Office a few
days before the events, he added.
Alok Jha,
BBC
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