Hi everyone,
John Holmes, the senior forecaster at Netweather and who worked at the Met Office for many years has kindly sent a forecast. I will keep this updated as we approach the race.
Weather Forecast for London Marathon Updated 11.00 a.m. 12.04.13
The overall idea shown for some days on the 500mb upper air charts has been for an upper ridge fairly close to the south of the UK. Its shape is open to some doubt, most of the time it shows as a ridge type on others (the minority) as a flattish westerly pattern with higher contours close by the south.
Putting this in terms of the surface pattern is never easy but I suggest that the idea shown this morning of a surface high over the southern half of the UK, probably more as a flattish sort of ridge on Sunday than the centre shown for Saturday.
The wind flow is not clear and could be a light to moderate flow from an easterly or a westerly point. The position of the ridge being the key. My own feeling is that the position will give a westerly component, actual speed is not possible to give this far out, not calm anyway!
This implies a dry day, perhaps a misty start with some low cloud at first but any of this clearing as the sun comes out with sunny spells by lunchtime.
Lows of somewhere between 3 and 6C and afternoon values up to 10-12C. So not all that warm which should help?
Comments
No idea what I'm doing, but that sounds perfect.
Cheers HR. Cool and dry sounds good. Fingers crossed for lighter rather than moderate wind (and preferably from the East).
Hmmm... over the past 24 hrs I've heard everything from 10 to 22 degrees and easterly or westerly winds. So we still appear to be in finger-in-air, tabloid horoscope territory.
Cheers HR, keep 'em coming!
Phil, does that mean we can just pick our favourite? I will take 10 degrees with a slight breeze.
Don't ask me, I'm a Gemini!
I will be sitting on the sofa with a bacon sarnie - wearing sunglasses or a woolly hat as the weather dictates
To be fair he's very experienced and isn't just using the model outputs, but applying them to a lot of knowledge. He got 2011 pretty spot on IIRC.
However, he'd acknowledge that this far out is still open to lots of change. I'll keep posting updates.
By the way, to interpret what he's put above, that would be just about perfect especially if a light easterly came off. London's predominantly east to west and those final miles up the Embankment would be doubly good with a bit wind in the back.
Personally I'm not going to worry about it. Can't change it and plan to run regardless
I think I might just bring all my running kit down to London and decide on the day what to wear!!
Frozen gels would last longer. You could suck on them like ice lollies.
I gave up trying to read that report after the first paragraph
Thanks HR, I'll look forward to the updates, as long as its not chucking it down or scorching (above 10 degrees) I'll be fine
You just can't predict the day, but I'll make sure I check several different forecasts several times a day, and this thread as well now, after all I'm British and need to talk about/worry about the weather
12degC, light easterly with a bit of drizzle at about the time I go through 20 miles then sun when I get to Horseguards Parade would be nice though
Is that report available in English?
Hot, dry and no wind or rain will suit me just fine
Hi HR, do you have an update from John?
Looked like the high pressure moving in on Friday from Countryfile forecast.
Can we do it on Saturday please?
I got a massive rain shower when I got to Horseguards last year. It was nice - for about the first three minutes. 25 minutes later when the folks turned up I was not so happy :-S
I'd like it to be warm and sunny, but that's because I've got a proper poorly ankle and have to walk it!
I think it's anyone's guess at the moment really, especially given how erratic our weather has been the last few months so I shall just keep an eye on how it's looking and decide what to pack to wear just before I leave on the Saturday. May get some charity shop stuff to wear over my kit in the early stages if it looks like it will be cold then warm up and just discard them as I warm up!
Thanks HR, any update this week would be greatly appreciated.
Metcheck and the Beeb forecasts are looking pretty innocuous at the minute.
Just 4 days to go. Forecast looks excellent to me
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/public/weather/forecast/southwark#?tab=fiveDay&fcTime=1366498800
7C (feels like 5C) at the start.
11C (feels like 10C) towards the end.
Low wind from the SE, very little chance of rain.
Cold in the morning before the start!
Perfect !!
loving that forecast...
Looks ideal that.