Thursday 17th July 2025

A proper mixture of weather ahead, some heat, some downpours, some cloudy spells and some sunny spells.

Thanks to Karen for the photograph.

So the general picture to start the forecast period sees high pressure to the south, and also far to our north, above Scandinavia – with low pressure about to be squeezed through the middle, which is where we are. Summer is only on pause, and even then there’s some hot and sunny weather to be found.

Thursday starts mostly cloudy thanks to a decaying weather front, some bits of light rain or drizzle possible. It should brighten up at least somewhat from roughly lunchtime onwards, some sunny spells, if perhaps hazy, though always a fair amount of cloud around. A small chance of an afternoon shower, say a 20% chance. Very warm and humid, a bit of uncertainty on the maximum temperature but somewhere around 26’C seems about right. A cloudy and fairly warm night overnight, down to around 17’C.

Friday will be a fairly hot and humid day. Some cloud around at times but also some reasonable sunny spells breaking through. There is maybe a 15% chance of a stray downpour developing in the afternoon. Reaching around 30’C, and humid too. At some point in the evening, more likely later on, heavy and possibly thundery showers, or more likely showery heavy rain will spread up from France. The rain potentially very heavy at times. A pretty warm and humid night, eventually down to around 18’C.

Saturday probably starts with this heavy, showery rain, perhaps with a rumble of thunder. This should clear, I guess late morning but this is uncertain, to be follower by some sunny spells but also some heavy, possibly thundery downpours. Showers tending to fade by mid-late afternoon. Again on the humid side, and very warm – temperatures will depend on how much sunshine you get, but say 23’C to 27’C is the range. Dry at first overnight, some showery rain spreading up in the second half of the night. Down to around 16’C.

By Sunday we have low pressure firmly in charge, centred to the south-west of Ireland.

Sunday likely starts cloudy with showery rain. This should clear to sunny spells and scattered heavy/very heavy showers for the rest of the morning, maybe part of the afternoon – generally sunnier and drier later in the day…probably. Very warm, reaching around 25’C. Further showers possible in the evening, showers or showery rain likely overnight. Down to around 16’C.

Monday sees low pressure crossing England. Some sunny spells but plenty of heavy/very heavy showers, perhaps torrential, perhaps thundery. Maybe you miss them all, but more likely you’ll see quite a few during the course of the day. Still on the warm side, somewhere around 23’C but very give and take. Showers mostly fading overnight, down to around 14’C.

For Tuesday we see low pressure pull away to the north-east, so fewer showers around and those that are shouldn’t be heavy. Some sunny spells and roughly around 23’C.

That’s about as far as I can go with reasonable confidence on details. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the low pressure spawn a secondary low for Tuesday night/Wednesday with some heavy rain – but I wouldn’t expect it yet either.

Broadly speaking Wednesday and Thursday are more likely fairly mixed days, though somewhere on the drier end of the spectrum is more likely, especially Thursday. Pretty unremarkable temperatures for July.

Friday and into next weekend perhaps the Azores high is trying to build once more, again not especially high confidence but that should see the warmth return, with some mixture of sunshine and cloud if it does – don’t be surprised if there is some weak weather front at some point too.

I don’t see a quick return to hot sunny days, but neither do I see weeks of unsettled weather ahead either. A general mish-mash of summer-ish weather probably takes us into early August – temperatures broadly around average with the odd short hot spell possible, variable amounts of cloud and sunshine, a few weak weather fronts bringing bits of rain on some days – nothing special but nothing dreadful.

After early August, it seems that there is a reasonable chance of high pressure having more influence with sunshine amounts increasing, and temperature back into the hot range more often.

Have a pleasant weekend ahead…maybe time to find the umbrella.