Weekend Mountain Weather Outlook

Weekend Weather 1st - 2nd July '06

Fact of the Week! Florida averages 300 days of full sunshine per year which is more than lots of places in the UK put together...

Our regular Friday round-up of what's in store for the weekend. Just check the links for the relevant weather forecasts and if you want to know how things look in a particular area right now, check out the OM web cams page for a selection of hill cams. And whatever you do, have a good one.

Metcheck for good overviews of localised areas based on a number of meteorological models. Loads of quirky options for stuff like rain forecasts plus offbeat, leftfield weather generalisations. Get stuck in and have a browse, there's a lot on this site. Metcheck has a new Google Earth fusion thing, unfortunately it's only available to premium members, but it sounds good anyway. 'The weather over the coming days and especially into the weekend and also the early part of next week will see a marked change to the last week or two as much warmer weather begins to dominate. With winds originating from a South and eventually Southeast direction temperatures will soar in conjunction with the strong summer sunshine and the feed of very warm air off the near continent.' In other words, hot, hot, hot... You can check out individual areas or dig a bit deeper for the Mountain Forecast page or the Climbing Forecast page. The Seven-Day Charts give a handy overview too.

Mountain Weather Information Service has great downloadable mountain-specific forecasts for NW, W and SE Highlands, Cairngorms, Southern Uplands, Peak District and Lakes in PDF format. Plus a Snowdonia forecast. The Peak and Snowdonia forecasts are now restricted to weekend forecasts and go out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Worth wading through the increasingly cluttered lay-out. Warm and breezy, windy even in Scotland with a small risk of thunderstorms on Saturday then, on Sunday, more of the same with a great risk of thunderstorms later on in the the southern half of the UK. It should be nice and warm on the tops as well. Check individual forecasts for specific details. Arguably the best mountain-specific forecast out there by a way.

BBC Weather Site uses Met Office data, but more user friendly. Just been revamped for the summer, weird stuff but easy access to a lot more information including rain forecasts, cloud, wind, temperature, visibility etc. Nice. Localised forecasts accessible from the same page. Saturday 'Western Scotland and Northern Ireland will be mostly cloudy with a few showers. Elsewhere should be dry with hot sunshine. The coasts will be cooler and perhaps a little misty, especially in the west.' Sunday 'Similar to Saturday. Chance of a few sharp showers in western fringes. Most places will be dry with hazy sunshine. Hot inland, but at least a noticeable breeze across southern areas.' BBC specific areas: Fort William / Kendal / Betws-y-Coed / Aviemore / Skipton / Glossop (Peak) / Brecon / Milton Keynes.

Met Office For localised five-day forecasts use this page. See weather for the next week. Saturday 'Mainly fine. Locally hot.' Sunday And again Welsh Mountain Forecasts Useful online forecasts covering the National Park areas of Snowdonia - and the Brecon Beacons.

Scottish Avalanche Information Service - The last daily avalanche forecast for the season has been and gone. In the winter there are avalanche and climbing condition reports for five major Scottish climbing areas - Lochaber, northern and southern Cairngorms, Glencoe and Creag Meagaidh. But we don't want to think about that for a while yet ...

OUTDOORSmagic web cam page Links to all the UK mountain web cams we're aware of. If there's one that we've missed, please drop us a line and we'll add it to the page. Good for getting a general idea of what the snow situation's like, if the sun is shining, whether there's anywhere to park in Coniston etc. Check the image you're viewing is up to date as they often seem to go down. We'll overhaul this page shortly as some of the links aren't functioning or the cameras have disappeared - nicked? You have to hope not ;-)

Sunshine and clearness in virtually all areas.
Risk of thunderstorms, particularly on Sunday.

Verdict July comes in with a scorcher of a weekend. It's looking warm and dry with a bit of a cooling breeze as well, particularly north of the border. There's a small possibility of thunderstorms on Saturday and Sunday with rain looking more likely late on in the southern half of the UK according to the MWIS.

One of those weekends when you need to pack the sun cream and a lightweight waterproof just in case, but if it looks like summer, feels like summer and tastes like summer then it probably is :-)

Have a good one.