(BBC) – The weather forecasters have just given us an impressive display of their skill by predicting the scale of the current high-pressure zone over the UK. Overnight, Sunday into Monday, London’s Heathrow Airport recorded a barometric pressure of 1,049.6 millibars.

It’s very likely the highest pressure ever recorded in London, with records dating back to 1692. But the UK Met Office and the European Centre for Medium-Range Forecasts had seen it coming well ahead of time. “Computerised forecast models run by the Met Office and the ECMWF predicted this development with near pinpoint precision, forecasting the eventual position and intensity of the high-pressure area several days in advance before it had even begun to form,” said Stephen Burt, a visiting fellow at Reading University’s department of meteorology.

London didn’t quite experience the highest of the high, however. That honor goes to the southwest of Britain. Met Office hourly observation reports recorded 1050.3 mbar at Liscombe in Devon, at 2100 GMT on Sunday evening. 1,050.2 mbar was recorded at Dunkeswell in Devon, and 1,050.5 mbar at Mumbles, in South Wales, shortly after. READ MORE