Start of summer: Wet or dry, hot or cold season to come?

It's finally the beginning of June, which means the summer season officially begins today.

You may be thinking that summer doesn't start until later in June and you wouldn't be wrong thinking this. There are two separate dates that can be used to define the start of the season.

Astronomically, the start of summer takes places on the summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year. It is defined by the Earth's axis and orbit around the Sun and the exact date varies slightly each year. This year the summer solstice falls on 20th June.

Meteorologically, in the Northern Hemisphere, summer begins on 1st June. It is a fixed date because it is statistically easier to process data by taking four equal quarters for each of the four seasons, with summer being June, July and August.

Well, despite reports of the UK set to see the hottest and the wettest summer in several years, that's not necessarily true.

For now, the summer season looks to be forecast around average in terms of rainfall, with perhaps a drier June and wetter August, while temperatures could be above-average. There are likely to be both regional and temporal fluctuations deviating from this average though.

It's not possible to predict an exact number of rainfall days, nor an exact temperature that we will hit for a season as a whole, let alone a month. Meteorologists can forecast monthly averages instead.

The first half of June does at least look to be ruled by high pressure, so dry weather looks to be on the horizon for now, with temperatures fluctuating around average.