Sheffield Steve

8 of the major meteorological agencies around the world have released their temperature forecasts for June. All 8 have gone for a warmer than average June in the Glastonbury area, some considerably so. Given the effect global warming has had on the climate and the temperature records that have been broken over the last year, that’s no real surprise, but nice to see such consistency nonetheless.

There is some hope on the horizon… after weeks and weeks of non-stop rain, the models pretty much agree that by the end of next week we’ll have an area of high pressure over the country, something we haven’t seen for a very long time.. some models go back to rain pretty quickly, others stick with the high pressure.. the end could be in sight..

Actually although winter/spring 2016 was wet it was nowhere near as wet as the one we’ve just had… let’s just hope it’s getting all the rain out of the way now… 2016:

Now the webcam is back, we can see it’s looking much drier behind the pyramid where it was waterlogged a couple of weeks ago. Looks like they’ve been doing some work back there…

The soil moisture figures for the end of March are out. Despite the exceptionally wet March, things seem to be drying out slightly over southern England, but not much in the Pilton area - still officially at the highest level of “very wet”. But with the forecast of drier weather for the second half of April (finally), the situation should be much better by the end of this month. March: Previous 4 months:

So here we have it, the area around Pilton had more than twice the average amount of rainfall in March. A very wet month. 2024: But let’s not forget that 2023 was just as wet, if not more so. Not the time to start panicking. Just yet… 2023:

Sadly there is no end in sight to this rain, for the time being. This is the sequence from the American GFS model for the next two weeks. Plenty more rain to come. The March summary from the Met Office should be out in the next day or so, just to confirm how wet March was (remember March 2023 was the wettest for over 40 years but the site was fine by end of June). It’s got to stop raining soon, right? Right?

Some record-breaking heat in Europe this weekend with temperatures up to 30c in Serbia and Bulgaria. Sign of things to come for us maybe? Agencies around the world continue to forecast a warm or very warm spring and early summer for Europe. It’s coming guys….

…and in other news, the French have excelled themselves in their latest forecast for June. They’re going for not just a warm, but a hot June across most of Western Europe. No need to worry about the state of the ground if this comes off. Sacré bleu! June:

The soil moisture conditions have been updated for the end of February. The soil is now much wetter than a month ago, which you’d expect after the wettest February on record. But as we keep saying, spring last year was very wet and the ground was fine by the end of June. No need to panic just yet. January: February:

The European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasting have just updated their prediction for April/May/June. The general theme continues, with all the models around the world going for a warmer than average spring and summer with around average rainfall. Obviously no specifics for Glastonbury week can be determined from this, but as each week goes by, that little glimmer of hope in the distance gets brighter and brighter… April/May/June temperatures compared to average, showing all of Western Europe having a warm or very warm few months:

Yep, it won’t take much to dry it all up, as it did last year. The 3 months to May 2023 were very wet - this shows the rainfall in the 3 months up to and including May 2023, “Notably” to “Exceptionally” wet in the Pilton area: But it only took a couple of warm and dry weeks in June to dry it all out. Glastonbury 2024 will be glorious!

June 2023 was actually the hottest June ever recorded for the U.K. as a whole. It was July and August that went on to be terrible, and spoil the summer. We got lucky. September was then the warmest ever recorded for England and Wales. …and this came after an exceptionally wet March where most of southern England had more than twice the usual rainfall. Lots of rain early in the year is no indicator of what we’ll end up with at the end of June and with a warm spring and summer forecast this year, we could get lucky again….. 🤞

Also, the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have issued the February update for the state of the ground. This chart shows soil moisture conditions for the U.K. as of January 31st 2024. The area around the fields is still showing wetter than average, but shows a considerable drying after December’s deluge. This is the same chart for December, very wet: Their prediction for the Spring and early Summer is for the ground to be drier than usual, which ties in with the other agencies’ predictions of a warm dry Spring.

The European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts have released their February forecasts for the spring and summer. As each month goes by, we can be increasingly confident of their accuracy. This is their prediction for the combined months of April, May and June. They’re still going for a warm to very warm Spring and Summer - bodes well…

OK that’s enough frivolity relating to Coldplay tracks, it’s time for another chart. This time from the Japan Meteorological Agency. The Japanese have got to be right, right? This is their prediction for Europe for the 3 months of April, May and June combined. They predict a significantly drier than average 3-month period for England and Wales in the run up to the festival, so no sodden ground this year, according to the Japanese at least. Other meteorological agencies are forecasting an average spring/early summer, but none of them are predicting a wetter than usual few months. So all going well so far…

OK the time has come for some charts…. And before anyone says it’s TOO EARLY, these charts proved 100% correct for each month last year. They predicted that every month last year would be warmer than average, and indeed they were… These charts are a combination of all the major seasonal models around the world, taking an average of all their predictions. They’re forecasting a significantly warmer than average June across the whole of Europe: But rainfall is predicted to be average across the month (rainfall at Glastonbury ‘23 was “average”). So it might be dry or it might chuck it down 🙂 :

So the official Glastonbury Twitter pic has just been changed to this…. What does it mean? Is it a Sky Full of Stars? Is an announcement imminent…?

We arrived on site at 9am on Wednesday and were directed to park in Orange 38 or 39 (can’t remember). The field was just filling up and we parked about half way. This is the second year in a row that we’ve parked in Orange so we counted ourselves lucky. The queue to get into Gate D was very slow though and we didn’t move at all for about 45 minutes at one point while people left the queue at the back and pushed in at the front where the gap in the hedge to the zig-zags is… Anyway, yes the wait to get out after the festival was a shocker. When we got back to the car at about midday on the Monday I asked the steward how long the cars had been stationary in the Orange queue and she said “about 3 hours”. We joined the queue to exit about 1pm and didn’t move for another 3 hours before we finally started moving a few cars at a time. Would hesitate to park in Orange next year if it’s gonna be like this……

Absolutely gutted I missed this. Didn’t know anything about it. Still have my original vinyl copy of Never Mind The B*llocks. Saw the Pistols live at O2 Brixton academy in 2007, what a night. Now watching on iPlayer, pogoing around the room. Wish I’d been there…

Yes! Met him in the heat on Saturday on the top path between Woodsies and the Pyramid. Only knew it was him from the pyramid hat. He was his usual charming self…

Saw Craig Parkinson (Dot from Line of Duty) in the crush on the Other Stage walkway.

Gazebos - are they permitted or not? And if they’re not, why not police them better? Wouldn’t take much for a steward to say “could you take your gazebo down please?”. There were quite a few in Bushy taking up a lot of space. And saw quite a few elsewhere….

Been stuck in Orange for 5 hours not moving. But looks like we’re finally on the move. Should definitely have some way of stopping people pushing in at the bottom of the field though…..!

And here’s my shot from about 5 miles off site…. A short sharp shock methinks.