The weather Gods smile on UK bike trade

Bill Giles, the BBC weatherman, gives 30 and 90 day forecasts on the BBC weather site. These are not endorsed by the BBC or the Met Office but let’s believe him anyway.

Here’s some highlights of his 30 day forecast:

Saturday 19 April to Friday 25 April

High pressure to the northeast of the country will give most places a predominately dry week with an east to southeast wind. Low pressure will be bringing some rain to northern France, which may just push up into southern England at times, but the chance of this happening is quite small.

So it will be a dry weekend for all of the country, and although probably cloudy in the mornings along the east coast of England and into the Midlands, the sun should appear just about everywhere. Saturday 26 April to Friday 2 May

I suspect it will be another basically dry week with only 10% to 20% of normal rainfall across the country. High pressure will dominate the scene. It seems likely that the high will be to the east of the country at first, with the winds tending to come in from the east or southeast. For the whole of the United Kingdom there will be north to northeast winds to start with giving dry weather with quite a lot of sunshine. During the week, if the high drifts further to the west, the winds are likely to pull in from the north, making it feel colder with perhaps a chance of some ground frosts at night, but at least the cloud along the east coasts should clear away. In the cooler weather, at the end of the week, a few showers are possible in northeast Scotland and some eastern parts of England, but western and southern Scotland, western England, including the Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland should stay dry with quite a lot of sunshine. Saturday 3 May to Friday 9 May

England and Wales will stay predominately dry with plenty of sunshine for most places, however, along some coasts of southwest England and southwest Wales there could be some misty low cloud or even fog over the hillier parts. Scotland and Northern Ireland will have more cloud than further south, although eastern areas of Scotland shouldn’t fare too badly in the southwesterly winds. Saturday 10 May to Wednesday 14 May

At this time it is difficult to be precise, but it looks as though the more unsettled weather in the north may spill southwards across England and Wales before pressure builds once again. Over Scotland and Northern Ireland the rain will become heavier and more persistent and this could well start to move southwards over England and Wales.

By the middle of the week the rain will slowly peter out with drier weather and some sunshine returning to most parts of the country.

The 90-day outlook – which brings more good news for the bike trade, if the predictions hold out – can be found at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/…/90day.shtml

And see this report for confirmation of this week’s wonderfully warm temperatures:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/…/2949141.stm