How long is it going to rain for and are we in for a summer scorcher?

Let's hope for the former.

It’s fair to say that despite temperatures going up in recent weeks, the UK weather is still pretty tumultuous at the moment.

From the aurora borealis to the hottest day of the year so far to yellow weather warnings for thunderstorms, we’ve seen pretty much everything mother nature has to offer this month.

It can be tempting to look ahead in these moments and hope for more consistent, warm and sunny weather as we approach June and the summer.

But unfortunately UK weather in the summer is just as unpredictable as the rest of the year, and early indications appear to show 2024 is no exception.

The Met Office regularly updates its long range forecasts, and currently they’re giving predictions until mid-June.

These longer term forecasts only look at the UK as a whole, rather than providing more detail for specific areas, due to the ‘chaotic nature of the atmosphere’ which can suddenly see small weather events over the Atlantic causing major issues in the UK days later.

But while understandably vague, the long range forecast for the UK up until June 18 makes for disappointing reading if you’re hoping for heat and sun.

The forecast reads: ‘Relatively weak signals for conditions to be markedly different from climatology through to the middle 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, and possibly slightly more likely in the southern half of the UK, but also some spells of warm sunshine.’

Yep, if the current warnings for stormy weather weren’t enough, we could have more thunderstorms on the horizon in the next few weeks.

We could be seeing slightly above average temperatures – but warm weather combined with rain makes for a muggy, humid combination.

A Met Office spokesperson explained how the long range forecasts are put together: ‘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).’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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