Today is officially the first day of summer and predictions are it will be much cooler and less torrid than recent years.
A spokesperson for the state Met Office explains that there are no significant tendencies either for rainfall or high temperaturas and that this summer will be “normal.”
While accepting that there are discrepancies in the models studied the spokesperson indicates that in the previous years there were ”positive anomalies” which are absent this year. The temperaturas last year were two or three degrees above average and this year the weather is expected to be “quite a lot cooler.”
The previous two years had been “much hotter than usual” compared to the reference period 1971 to 2000.
The average temperature this spring has been 14.7 degrees between March and May which is considered “normal” and there has been an average of 118 litres per square metre of rainfall. However, there have been two “hot periods” with thermometers registering a maximum of 34 degrees.
