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There's been almost a frenzy of tabloid stories in the last few weeks about this summer.

Many will recall how summer was supposed to begin last weekend with a heatwave that would lead to temperatures averaging 29C for a fortnight!

So the tabloids and some private weather companies (I will spare their blushes by not mentioning any names) are not off to a good start, indeed with the climatologically extreme area of low pressure we had yesterday, the weather couldn't be more different.

But the headline that has caught everyone's eye is that we are in for a long hot summer, akin to the summer of 1976, according to Netweather, which was the hottest on record.

Last year you may remember, the headlines were exactly the same, off the back of interviews given by Positive Weather Solutions - who later claimed they had been mis-quoted.

But I have spent the last few days reviewing the different medium range forecasts available.

Firstly, Netweather. Their analysis and approach is well thought out, and you can read it , as to why they think this summer is going to be dominated by long periods of hot and sunny weather, with 'shades of 1976'.

It was certainly a gift to the tabloid press and has led to a frenzy of front page stories.

Next The Met Office. They no longer publish their thoughts prefering to keep their seasonal forecasts private, for research purposes (their words not mine).

Piers Corbyn was next on my list from , and he was in a typically robust mood.

One thing you learn about Piers is that there is no messing about, he gives you an answer in black and white with no fudging around the edges.

The idea of a summer like 1976 is nonsense according to him; based on ongoing solar influences it's virtually impossible to have a situation this summer like that of 1976 he told me.

My Corbyn is expecting a summer which will become more unsettled compared with the long settled spring we have just experienced.

He says solar influences will force the jet stream at times to the south of its normal position leading to spells of unsettled weather for much of the UK, although he did stop short of predicting a complete washout.

Last but by no means least comes Joe Bastardi formerly at Accuweather.com and now at US company Weatherbell, based in New York.

His analysis is often second to none, and he has an army of followers and private clients in America. I contacted him at the weekend, and he has produced a very interesting analysis which you can read on his website .

Joe expects a summer warmer and drier than average, a 'decent English summer' as he put it to me. But he also thinks that a long hot summer (he uses the example of 2003 which across Europe was one of the hottest on record) is 'highly doubtful'.

His main reasoning is that temperatures higher up in the atmosphere have cooled dramatically, and are much cooler than during the last hot European summer in 2003.

In fact upper level temperatures at 25,000 ft are cooler than at just about any time in the 13 year data set he showed me.

This he says will act as a lid on the level of temperatures that can be achieved - in short, if temperatures at the surface that you and I experience get too high, the colder than normal temperatures aloft would cause a destabalisation of the atmosphere, leading to higher rainfall.

Finally, a close look at the climate records indicates that blocking weather patterns through Spring which have led to the very dry weather across parts of the country mostly give way to a less settled scenario through the following summer, although there are exceptions to this, like in 1976, 1995 and 2003.

As ever, long range forecasting is fraught with dangers and even the most skilled operators can get it wrong. But a summer along the lines of 1976, although it can't be ruled out, would be a big surprise. But as ever it will be very interesting to see who is right.

And by the way, Mr Bastardi also told me he is more than happy for me to add that he thinks we are in for a prolonged cold winter again this year. Now that would raise a few eyebrows!

SEVERE GALES

An unusually deep area of low pressure for the time of year is battering parts of Northern Britain at the moment. The highest gust recorded so far is 90mph at Belmullet in Northern Ireland.

The Met office have yellow and Amber warnings in force until midnight tonight, shown below. The Amber area shows where the highest risk of disruption due to severe gales is, with the yellow area a lower level of warning.

VOLCANIC ASH

Following the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, there will be a lot of nervous holidaymakers across the UK as the Spring bank half term holiday approaches, with fresh memories of the disruption faced in Spring last year.

Unfortunately, weather patterns do not inspire confidence.

Scottish airspace could be affected later tonight.

The main risk is then from Wednesday night onwards, as upper level winds start to drag ash southeastwards across other parts of the UK.

If wind projections stay the same Leeds Bradford, Robin Hood, Manchester and Humberside airports, amongst others, could be at risk from possible disruption towards the end of the week, depending on the concentration of the ash in the atmosphere at that time.

The chart below shows wind arrows at the 20,000 ft flight level originating from the Iceland area and travelling across parts of the UK at 7am on Thursday morning.

There will be further updates on twitter @Hudsonweather

ENDS

UPADTE 9pm, Sat 21st May

As always I read all comments on this blog with interest. Climate change science is a serious subject with the potential for far reaching consequences, and so I am more than happy to point out that on this occasion I think some of the criticisms of my article are valid, and I may have over simplified the research published by Dr Hansen. In particular in my article I suggest that aerosols are underestimated by IPCC models, which would lead to an over estimation of temperature predictions going forward, which remains valid. However my mistake was to take this in isolation, when in fact another element of the research states that IPCC models could be at the same time understating global warming because they may overestimate ocean heat uptake. Combined, the result could be that these two model errors largely cancel each other out - and when treated together, and not in isolation, the overall impact could be neutral, and so IPCC projections would not as a consequence of these two model errors be too high.

ENDS

James Hansen, a leading and high profile climate scientist, has conducted research that suggests that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) global temperature predictions could be too warm, because the models it uses understates the levels of aerosols in the atmosphere.

Atmospheric aerosols are fine particles suspended in the air such as dust, sulphates, and soot from, amongst other things, industry and volcanoes that have a net cooling influence on the climate.

Mr Hansen, who is head of the Goddard Institute of Space Science (GISS) in America, and a passionate advocate of man-made global warming, suggests that failure to take proper account of such particles in the atmosphere is 'untenable' as 'knowledge of changing aerosol effects is needed to understand future climate changes'.

In his paper that was published earlier this month, which has been given surprisingly little attention by the media, Mr Hansen admits that although climate forcing by man-made greenhouse gases (warming) is known, climate forcing by changing man-made aerosols (cooling) is practically unmeasured.

Aerosols can cool the atmosphere by reflecting radiation into space; they can also warm the atmosphere by absorbing solar radiation. Aerosols can also force cloud development.

Their net effect is known to cool the planet.

Most IPCC climate models also exclude the effect of human made aerosols on clouds.

In some of my earliest articles and blogs back in autumn 2009 I pointed out that we had not observed the level of global warming that climate models had predicted.

I also suggested last year that that some climate models seemed to have a 'warm bias'.

This research could go some way in explaining why this has been the case.

Only this week the UK government decided to extend legally binding carbon reduction targets to 2030.

All carbon reduction targets have been based on decadal temperature forecasts made by the IPCC whose predictions, Mr Hansen suggests in his latest paper, could be too warm.

But the author says that because aerosols remain in the air for only a few days, they will have to be pumped into the atmosphere at increasingly fast rates to keep pace with long-lived greenhouse gases (which exist for decades). And so if the air is cleaned up and aerosols decrease in concentration in years to come, global temperatures could make up for lost time and rise sharply in response.

This research adds more uncertainty to future global temperature predictions; the implication that global temperatures may not rise as fast as the IPCC currently estimates could prove a headache for them, and also for governments, with climate-sceptical politicians seeing it as another reason to be cautious on carbon reduction.

You can read the research in full

You can also follow me on twitter @Hudsonweather

It's been one of the most remarkable things in British politics for many years: The political consensus, across all the main parties, on the need and the speed at which the UK is to cut its carbon emissions to avoid so called 'dangerous climate change'.

And yet, lurking just beneath the surface, there are MPs who privately either express concern at the cost of going green and how, if other countries don't do the same, it might damage the country's competitiveness; or even voice doubts about man made global warming itself, believing the threat is exaggerated.

That said it still came as a surprise to commentators this week when a prominent member of the Cabinet, the Business Secretary Vince Cable, voiced his concerns that the speed and cost of carbon reductions over the coming years could harm prospects for jobs and growth - concerns that are apparently shared by, among others, the Chancellor George Osborne.

In 2008, three budgets were announced taking the country on a path of carbon reduction to 2023. But the next target that has to be set in the next few days will take the country to 2030.

The government have been told that carbon emissions should be cut by 60% compared to 1990 levels by 2030, by the government's advisory body on climate change.

Lord Turner, who heads this body, met with ministers to try and heal a rift which has pitched Osborne, Cable and others against the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne.

In a leaked letter, Cable wrote that he feared the Energy Secretary's plan relies on securing a cap on emissions trading across Europe that may never materialise. If this were not achieved, the UK would be left cutting carbon emissions unilaterally, which would risk putting industry at a disadvantage.

A decision will be made by the Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday and will be watched very closely to see if the UK's remarkable political consensus remains in place.

Any watering down of the UK's carbon reduction plan, which is one of the toughest in the world, would be seen as a major blow by green campaigners that could have far reaching ramifications around the world.

UPDATE at 6pm Tue 10th May

The UAH anomaly for April rose to +0.12C above the 30 year running mean, from -0.1C below the mean in March. Early indications suggest that Global temperatures have bottomed out above the levels reached following the previous La Nina of 2007.

ENDS

I am still waiting for the release of the UAH global satellite temperatures for April. This is normally the first to be released each month, but because of power cuts during the tornadoes that affected Alabama last week, they are waiting for some missing data.

I will update the blog when it's released which should be later today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, the other satellite data set, RSS, shows that the April 2011 anomaly was very close to average at +0.11C above the 30 year running average, which is a little higher than the previous month.

The image below shows how polarised temperatures were in April, with the abnormal record breaking warmth which we experienced here in the UK, and across parts of Europe clearly visible, whilst at the same time the abnormal cold across northern parts of America and Canada can also be seen.

UPDATE on Tue 3rd May

Bradford Lister Park, with records back to 1906, has also recorded its driest (previously 2007) and warmest April (previously 1966) on record, and its sunniest (previously 1942).

New records too (for lowest rainfall) at Linton on Ouse and Church Fenton.

ENDS

Figures released by the Met Office next week are expected to show that April 2011 has been the warmest ever recorded according to Central England Temperature (CET) records, which is the longest temperature data set in the world, with records going back to 1659.

The April record was last set only 4 years ago in 2007; before that the previous warmest April on record was in 1865.

It continues a run of incredible temperature extremes, coming hot off the heels of December 2010 which was the second coldest December since 1659, and the coldest since 1890.

Locally, April 2011 will also be the warmest on record at Leeming in North Yorkshire.

April 2011 will also not only be the driest April on record at the North Yorkshire station, but their driest month ever, with less than 2mm for the entire month.

The previous driest April was in 1954 (5.4mm); and the previous driest month was February 1985, with 2.9mm of rain. Records go back to 1945.