Golf returns, any useful rain?
Golf has returned, and let’s hope the situation in the country stays safe enough for us to continue doing this fully into the summer. I’m sure we’re all more than willing to keep to the various restrictions to enable us to get out and enjoy the game we love.
So what does the weather have in store for both players and greenkeepers in the near future? Here’s my latest summary:
Still largely dry, warming up next week.
Our British weather likes to give us the runaround, and we often swing between being too wet and too dry, and less often ‘just right’! The soggy winter is now a distant memory, and recent weeks of lockdown has seen things dry out significantly, to the extent that we could now use a drop of rain!
The outlook for the next 10 days doesn’t have much rain in the forecast, and it stays dry for most through to Saturday, barring a local squib of a shower.
A weather front is then due to come in from the Atlantic as we move into Sunday and perhaps Monday. Most of this rain is likely to be aimed at the northwestern parts of Britain, although some is expected to spill into the Pennines. 3-5mm currently modelled for central parts of Derbyshire and the Peak District in 48 hours or so Sunday-Monday.
Beyond that, high pressure is expected to build from the south, with dry conditions looking likely for most of next week, and becoming increasingly warm as the wind flow turns to the south, beginning to feel rather humid too.
Temperatures will be back to 15 to 17C this weekend, then into the low 20s Celsius into next week, and some spots may nudge 23 or 24C by midweek if the sunshine comes out widely. The current risk of overnight frost will disappear by the weekend onward.
Further ahead, signals are for warmer than average conditions to be a common theme late May into early June, interspersed with perhaps the odd thundery breakdown coming from the south. Overall though, conditions look more often dry in the weeks ahead. Sometimes as we move further into June, we see a so-called ‘return of the westerly winds’, which can bring unsettled weather following these drier springtime patterns. We’ll have to wait and see if that will materialise this year.