If It Makes You Feel Any Better ...

... the weather sucks in the U.K. this summer too.

From London, The Times (online edition) reports "La Nina knocks jet stream off course to dampen summer spirits."

The culprit to blame is the jet stream. This river of high altitude wind snakes around the globe and steers Atlantic depressions towards Britain. Usually in the summer we would expect the jet stream to push off farther north, taking its wet and windy weather with it. But for the past few weeks it has clung to Britain, delivering the sort of storms you might expect in the winter. All of which is alarmingly reminiscent of last summer.

The Rest -- a good (and informative) weather rant. If the British are complaining about the rain ... well ... here's their forecast for the rest of the week --

Overview
Rain across Northern England and Northern Ireland. Mainly dry elsewhere.

This Evening and Tonight:
A band of rain will become slow moving across Northern England and the south of Northern Ireland this evening and tonight. Elsewhere a few showers will continue into the evening, but these will largely die out overnight.

Thursday:
The band of rain across Northern England will edge further north into Southern Scotland. Elsewhere it will be brighter with showers breaking out which could be heavy in places.

Outlook for Friday to Sunday:
Showers in the north on Friday but dry in the south. Rain spreading into western parts later. The weekend will be unsettled with showers or longer spells of rain.
Click here for weather map.

Sorry, mates.