Why is Europe sweltering while the UK is a washout?

A raging heatwave is baking southern Europe with temperatures expected to reach as high as 49C in some parts.

The “blazing mercury” in Italy has led to the death of a 44-year-old man, noted The Independent. Thousands have been forced to evacuate due to fires in Greece and Spain, because of the “inferno currently gripping the Mediterranean”, said the Evening Standard.

Meanwhile, a month’s worth of rain is set to drench the UK this weekend, with temperatures hovering no higher than “the high teens to low 20s”, said Netweather. Europe’s deadly heatwave is quite a contrast to the wet and windy conditions in the UK. So what is going on?

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What did the papers say?

After the UK’s warmest June on record, the weather became cooler and wetter, due to movement of the jet stream – a fast wind high in the atmosphere, said Simon King, of BBC Weather. “To the north of the jet stream you have the cooler Arctic air”, he explained, while to the south there is “warmer tropical air”.

At the moment, the jet stream is “stuck in a position through central Europe”, forming a “blocked weather pattern”. This means the UK is “not likely to see any of that extreme heat in the coming days or weeks”, said King. In other words, with weather patterns “stuck in the same position”, there is “no real sign of that changing”.

“Anyone hoping to see warmer weather in the UK might be disappointed,” agreed Met Office spokesman Stephen Dixon. He told the Daily Mirror that “the European heat isn’t expected to have any direct impact on the UK in the current forecast period”.

Dixon explained that “because of the position of the jet stream, what we’re seeing at the moment is more of an Atlantic influence on our weather” – “a succession of low pressure systems” and “some longer periods of rain and wind at times”.

There is “an Atlantic influence on UK weather”, agreed HuffPost, which is why the “pressure system over the UK is so low in contrast to the rest of the continent’s” and also “why it feels so unstable, with regular shifts into rain and wind in between spells of sun”.

What next?

Sun lovers in the UK want to know when the hot weather will return. That sort of change is some weeks away, said experts. The jet stream that is sitting over Europe is “slow moving”, said the i news site, meaning conditions are expected to stay the same for the coming weeks. “But it is thought that some warm weather may arrive in mid-August,” it added.

Longer-range weather models show the jet stream moving further north into August, said King. But although this could bring the UK higher temperatures next month, an “intense heatwave like they are experiencing in southern Europe isn’t expected”, he said.

Southern Europe’s extreme heatwave is forecast to ease around the end of July, “but that won’t be the end of Europe’s weather woes”, said Euronews. The World Meteorological Organization, a UN agency, has warned that there is a 90% probability of the El Niño weather pattern continuing until the end of the year at moderate strength or higher.

Meanwhile, scientists say the “fingerprints of climate change” can be found on Europe’s heatwave, said Sky News. “The base level of heat is higher so we are seeing increased levels of heat due to climate change,” Met Office spokesperson Nicola Maxey told the broadcaster.