Sunderland weather: 'Heat dome' probably nonsense as Met Office plays down latest silly forecast stories

Not that we’re entirely sure what a ‘heat dome’ is*, to tell you the truth, though it makes slightly more sense than a ‘snow bomb’.

Recent days have seen news websites produce a flurry of stories about said ‘heat dome’ , with some quoting something calling itself ‘Exacata Weather on Facebook’.

According to these, temperatures are set to rise from July 9 onwards, reaching the 30s by the end of July.

It may well get warmer later in the month, and we’ll certainly hope it at least gets drier, but experts at the Met Office have been quoted today as noting: “A ‘heat dome’ is not a meteorological term, nor are we predicting one.”

Genuine forecast for Sunderland

If you would like a more genuine forecast for Sunderland for today, we’d first invite you to look out of the window. You’ll see it bucketing down.

At best, this will fizzle into a drizzle around 6pm, but it’s set to remain cloudy and cool, with the chance of more rain later.

Tomorrow it’s forecast to be cloudy with the potential for some rain around lunchtime and in the evening, and a maximum temperature of 18 degrees.

Beyond then, the weather is harder to predict locally.

The official Met Office outlook for the North East is for a ‘weakening band of rain and drizzle’ moving south on Thursday, then mostly dry with sunny spells on Friday and Saturday, but still the chance of a few scattered showers.

A warm end to July?

As for warm weather towards the end of July and into August, the Met Office stresses in its long-range forecast that ‘predictability at this range is low’ but notes there are ‘some signs’ of more settled whether, with above-average temperatures and drier conditions ‘very slightly favoured’.

In other words, it might by warm and dry, but don’t count your chickens.

‘Chaotic’ weather and ‘exaggerated headlines’

Navigating weather stories is all part of the charms of modern journalism, with pressure to produce and over-egg stories about snow or sunshine to get readers clicking.

Some advisors in some modern media companies have been known to confound reason.

As the Met Office itself states in its guidance: “Talking about the weather is a national obsession in the UK, making it a popular subject for the media.

“However, our weather is not always exciting or extreme, meaning misleading or exaggerated headlines can appear at times.

“Indeed, even when the weather is dramatic, we sometimes still see skewed or misleading headlines.”

And while the climate experts do work hard to bring accurate forecasts, the truth is the weather is just too hard to predict beyond a certain point.

“When looking at forecasts beyond seven days, the chaotic nature of the atmosphere begins to play a larger part,” the Met Office goes on in its guidance.

“Small weather events over the Atlantic can have potentially significant impacts on our weather in the UK several days later.

“Therefore while we can still forecast the general feel of the weather to a relatively high level of accuracy using our  Ensemble Forecasting, it becomes more challenging to offer local detail to as high a level of accuracy as we do in our short-range forecasts. “

*A note on ‘heat domes’

To be fully fair regarding ‘heat domes’, while the Met Office states it isn’t a meteorological term, the Royal Meteorological Society does offer an explanation on its ‘MetMatters’ website.

“In short, a heat dome is created when an area of high pressure stays over the same area for days or even weeks, trapping very warm air underneath - rather like a lid on a pot,” is its succinct explanation.