Average temperatures during May, for example, were 10C above the norm – reigniting wildfires still simmering from last year. These ‘blocking’ patterns of high pressure are the main reason for the extended periods of sunny, dry and relatively warm conditions that we have seen this spring.”Īt the same time, the usually chilly expanse of Siberia has been simmering in unseasonable heat. “This spring, the jet stream buckled and shifted northward, allowing successive areas of high pressure to dominate the UK. Prof Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, described this wet-to-dry shift as “ unprecedented”.Īs the Met Office explained in a guest post for Carbon Brief, the remarkable spring weather was a result of a blocking weather pattern: The UK has just experienced its sunniest and fifth driest spring on record, an extraordinary about-turn after the wettest February on record just months earlier. This persistent weather can cause extreme conditions.
However, if you are in the area where the weather fronts are, you are likely to get wet and windy weather for a long time.” “In terms of the weather you will get, this means that under the high pressure the weather will remain mainly dry and settled for a few days or perhaps weeks. This can bring extended periods of consistent weather, says the UK’s Met Office: With a high-pressure weather system in the way, the oncoming weather is either deflected away or it, too, stays put. “Blocking is a stationary and persistent weather pattern, most often an anticyclone, that blocks the oncoming jet stream and storms.” This is known as “blocking”, explains Prof Tim Woollings, associate professor of physical climate science at the University of Oxford, Oxford joint chair of the Met Office Academic Partnership, and author of a book on the jet stream. However, sometimes weather systems can get stuck in place for an extended period of time.
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