Weather mythbuster: Is the UK set for 50 days of rain?

Talk of the wettest summer in 100 years is making headlines, but how much merit does that actually hold?

While we did see the sixth wettest April on record, and have seen a pretty soggy May too with thunderstorms and what feels like relentless rain at times, the UK is not set for 50 days of rain.

This is because it is not possible to determine the exact number of rainfall days in a long-range forecast. We can say that perhaps summer, or individual months may be wetter or drier than average, but we can not guarantee the exact number of days that rain will fall.

It is not possible to forecast that specific a number for an entire season, let alone month, ruling the statement inaccurate. Once you go five days ahead in a forecast, the detail becomes far more vague.

This is all because the nature of our atmosphere is chaotic by definition, and the weather across the UK and Ireland is inherently changeable, being an island susceptible to so many different types of weather.

What we can say at this stage from monthly averages, is that June for now is looking drier than normal, July roughly around normal and August wetter than normal.

As a whole for the summer season, weather models are indicating that summer may come out roughly around average in terms of rainfall across much of the UK and Ireland, but perhaps wetter than normal furthest north.

However regional deviations can occur, along with weeks or days within that month, which may not be representative of the monthly average.