THE promise of blue skies and bright sun has been replaced by blue moods and blown-out brollies as the barbecue summer fizzles into a season of Pak-A-Macs.

In typical British form it all started so well.

By June with temperatures soaring into the 30s the perspiring population was complaining it was too hot and agreed we’d appreciate some cooler weather.

As they say, be careful what you wish for, because after a baking early July, we’ve got the drop in temperatures – and thunderstorms, gales and lashing rain.

Speaking as someone who delayed getting out of my car in central Liverpool by 15 minutes yesterday morning as hail stones the size of golf balls pelted down, it feels as if we’re plunging back into the bleak mid-winter.

Back in April, the Met Office issued a seasonal forecast that sparked hopes for a warm and sunny summer claiming with a claim   the UK was ‘odds-on for a barbecue summer’.

The said prediction was that temperatures were likely to  soar above 30C warmer than average and rainfall near or below average for the three months of summer.

It continued that temperatures would soar above 30C, although it did not rule out the chance of seeing heavy downpours “at times”.

In a final flourish, the forecasters predicted that a repeat of the wet summers of 2007 and 2008 is unlikely.

But in an update yesterday, it admitted the situation was rather wetter (as we amateurs  noted), prompting questions over the usefulness and accuracy of long-term forecasting.

In its defence, however, the Met Office pointed out the odds it gave were 2-to-1 and that “for the rest of summer, rainfall is likely to be near or above average over the UK and much of northern Europe”.

The average UK rainfall for August from 1971-2000 is 3.3in (84.6mm). Temperatures were, however, “likely to be near or above” the August average of 14.7C (58.5F).

Forecasters warned of the pitfalls of predicting the weather a long way in advance after that afore-mentioned heatwave in June failed to last.

Ewen McCallum, the Met Office’s chief meteorologist, says: “After two disappointingly wet summers, the signs are much more promising this year.