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.
Long range forecast
Long range forecast
Friday 24 May - Sunday 2 Jun
Most likely an unsettled start to the period with showers in the west and perhaps longer periods of rain in the northeast, although still some settled weather in between. Over the bank holiday weekend a band of rain likely to arrive from the west, becoming weaker as it moves east and becoming more showery in nature with scattered showers also following. Into the new week increasingly settled conditions more likely for most, though rain may threaten north-western areas whilst some southern or eastern areas occasionally less settled with showers more likely later in the period though there will be some sunshine between them, the best of this in south-western parts. Temperatures are likely to be a little above average, but some large spatial differences are likely.
Monday 3 Jun - Monday 17 Jun
Relatively weak signals for conditions to be markedly different from climatology through the first half of June. That said, both temperatures and rainfall are more-likely to be a little above average overall, with further rain or showers (possibly heavy/thundery at times) but also some spells of warm sunshine.
Why isn't there more detail in the long range forecast?
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).