To say the weather in the capital has been confusing recently would be an understatement.
Thanks to a blast of cold air from the north, temperatures plummeted to 9ºC in London over the weekend, well below the 15ºC average for this time of year.
Although it may feel as though summer is well and truly behind us, reports looking at the weather for the rest of this week suggest otherwise.
Temperatures could reach 20ºC and sunshine will return to our skies again in what will feel like a throwback to summer on Tuesday and Wednesday – although “wet and windy” weather conditions are expected to return by the end of the week.
So why does the weather feel so up and down at the moment?
“This week, we see the winds switch round to a more southerly direction, dragging up milder air and raising the temperatures,” Andrea Bishop, a Met Office spokesperson, explained.
“High pressure will sit to the east of the UK for most of the week, peaking on Wednesday, with possible temperatures of 20ºC in London, where the cloud lifts and sunshine comes through.
“We’ll see temperatures fall as we head towards the weekends, though, as weather fronts from the west push that high pressure away, bringing some rain and fresher conditions for the weekend.”
According to the Met Office, this summer was the UK’s coolest since 2015 thanks to the jet stream – a fast-flowing current of air in the atmosphere that steers low-pressure weather conditions.
Although June on the whole was on the dry side, August was the wettest month of the summer, with a rainfall total of 46.2mm.
The Met Office has said that a factor behind these extreme weather changes is climate change. Featured in the State of the UK Climate report, analysis shows that temperature extremes in the UK are most affected “by human-induced climate change”.
The number of ‘pleasant days’ (where the daily maximum is 20ºC) has increased by more than 40 per cent in the most recent decade (2014-2023), compared to records between 1961 and 1990. ‘Warm days’ (25ºC) increased by more than 60 per cent while ‘hot’ (28ºC) and ‘very hot’ (30ºC) days have doubled and trebled over the same period, respectively.
The observations also suggest that climate change is influencing rainfall extremes in the UK, with 20 per cent more days of ‘exceptional’ rainfall compared to the same period.
