The weather throughout June has been the complete opposite of June 2018. It has been an extremely wet month throughout the UK, with few breaks in between. Fortunately, despite weather warnings we didn’t encounter any storms in our area, but as always, we were prepared just in case to ensure that we continue to power the lives of our five million customers across the North West.
Is this wet weather going to continue throughout summer? Find out in our latest update from professional meteorologist, Peter McAward from MeteoGroup.
ENW Weather Story June 2019
The unsettled and generally wet and cool trend from late Spring continued through much of June this year, with low pressure areas near or over the UK being the dominant weather pattern. The jet stream – a current of fast-moving air in the upper atmosphere that drives weather systems – spent most of June south of the UK in Central Europe, so these low pressure centres tended to be slow-moving or nearly stationary, and persist for several days or even a week.
The main consequence of this is that June was a very wet month, with frequent slow-moving fronts bringing outbreaks of heavy rain that persisted for days at a time. Although the wettest spots in the UK tended to be in the Midlands (especially Lincolnshire), NW England had it’s fair share of rain. Dry spells tended to be brief and intermittent, with rain returning usually after only a day or two break. Temperatures also tended to be frequently below average, leading a few chilly or even cold feeling mornings.
The first half of the month saw low pressure systems over the UK as high pressure stayed out in the North Atlantic and Central Europe, preventing these fronts from moving anywhere. Instead, they just lingered overhead as lows shifted between the UK, North Sea, and north of Scotland. Near the middle of the month high pressure near Iceland become slightly stronger and pushed the lows into Central Europe. However, rain was still present in places so while this wasn’t a completely dry pattern, it was noticeably less wet than other weeks. Low pressure returned for a time, but the final week of June saw some prolonged high pressure for the first time in almost two months, with lengthy dryness and some warmer, more summer-like afternoons.
This makes quite a sharp contrast with June 2018, which was extremely dry and often very hot, and rainfall ended up being well below average for the month. A few large fires even broke out in the moors, compared with the fire risk for this June which was extremely low the entire month.
A look ahead to July
The weather pattern that made for such a wet June looks like it will persist into July with the jet stream tending to stay south or over the UK, allowing low pressure systems and fronts to move in. However, in contrast to June, we do expected more frequent dry spells, as a large area of high pressure builds in the Atlantic to the southwest. It is likely that we will see pulses of this high reach into the UK between frontal systems, bringing in a few days of settled, sunny, and warmer weather before the rain returns.
A continuation of this pattern carries with it a risk that we may see another heat wave in Europe and the UK similar to the last week of June. In June, the hottest air was kept mainly in Europe from a blocking high pressure, but we may not get this benefit next time. There are some signals that another heat wave event is possible towards mid-July, so while we expect the weather to continue to be wet, it will likely be slightly warmer than June, and at times may turn very warm.
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