Weather Watch: We’ve been stuck in a rut, but it will change

While it was baking when sat in the sun, air temperatures on Sunday afternoon only reached 18-19C, which is about normal for the time of year.

The nights were distinctly cool and Tring fell to 4C on Sunday night.

The main reason for the distinct lack of very warm days in the latter half of spring and into the start of June has been the positioning of high pressure.

High pressure is a huge mass of descending air and often brings dry, settled conditions.

However, the location of high pressure dictates where our winds blow from and, recently, the high pressure has been sat to the west of the UK, drawing in cool north-westerly winds.

There can be many reasons as to why weather patterns become “stuck in a rut”, and these are often very difficult to pin down.

However, as we’ve progressed through the spring this year, the sea-surface temperatures over the northern Atlantic have been cooler than we’d normally expect.

Cool seas can often increase the likelihood of high pressure developing in the atmosphere above, and so this could well be a large causation.

It looks as if the high pressure will edge away over the next few days, allowing warm but unstable southerly winds to move in.

We may well see daytime temperatures and humidity increase through tomorrow and Friday in hazy sunshine but there will also be a greater risk of catching some heavy downpours.

Probably turning drier, but also a little cooler again, this weekend.