Cooler summer forecast just hot air

Wishful thinking that the summer is going to be cooler than previous years is unfounded, said chief meteorological officer Saviour Porter, explaining that it is impossible to talk about seasonal forecasts with any degree of certainty.

Rumour has it that summer is going to be fresher than usual but Mr Porter stressed that weather predictions for an entire season were not possible in terms of global meteorology. The only forecasts that could be made with a certain degree of confidence were for up to four days. Beyond that, any confidence dropped remarkably, he said.

There were no indications that the summer would be cooler, said Mr Porter. He assumed that any hopes were based on the fact that the average temperature in June up to now was 22.4°C - much lower than the previous year. In fact, June last year was about four degrees warmer than this year, he calculated.

The average temperature for June 2003 was 26.1°C and the mean monthly temperature for June over the last 30 years stood at 23.4°C, meaning that last year was almost three degrees warmer.

"It was exceptionally warm and, maybe, people are remembering last year and seeing that it is cooler this year," he reasoned.

Before Sunday, the average temperature for June was even lower, standing at 21.8°C, which could have given rise to hopes that summer would be more bearable than usual.

Breaking it down, Mr Porter said the average temperature for June in the 10 years between 1971 and 1980 was 22.9°C; 23.4°C between 1981 and 1990 and 24.1°C between 1991 and 2000.

Seasonal forecasts, not only locally, were so inaccurate that they were not worth talking about and it was only a matter of speculation, Mr Porter said, quoting the Hadley Centre of the UK Meteorological Office - one of the forerunners of seasonal forecasts - as saying that, on average, the summer would remain the same as other years; neither cooler, nor warmer.

On the other hand, the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction was saying there was a possibility that the summer would be warmer than average. But both underline that they are "experimental forecasts", not to be taken seriously.