[summer '85]

<p>June 1987 was a disappointingly cool, very dull and wet month. The 2nd test match at Lord's, England v Pakistan, was a disaster with 3 days washed out and the first day of Wimbledon fortnight was washed out with play not beginning until well into the 2nd day.</p><p>The 5th of June was a particularly wet day </p><p><img height="658" src="http://www.wetterzentrale.de/archive/ra/1987/Rrea00119870606.gif" width="608" border="0" /></p><p>This heralded a very cool spell of weather that lasted from the 7th to the 16th, a number of places never got to 16C during this period.  Thunderstorms did breakout during this period with hail.</p><p>For Manchester, June 1987 was actually the wettest month of the 1980s.</p><p>The weather finally picked up at the end of June with temperatures getting into the 20s.</p><p>Its the dullest June on record in the Areal series.</p><p>CET trackometer</p><p>1.   13.5
2.   12.9
3. 13.0
4.   13.1
5.   12.5
6.   12.7
7.   12.5
8.   12.3
9.   12.1
10. 11.9
11. 11.9
12.  11.8
13.  11.7
14.  11.6
15.  11.5
16.  11.5
17.  11.5
18.  11.5
19.  11.6
20.  11.7
21.  11.7
22.  11.8
23.  11.8
24.  11.9
25.  11.9
26.  12.1
27.  12.2
28.  12.5
29.  12.7
30.  12.8</p><p>Abbotsinch
Mean Max: 15.9
Rainfall: 93mm (160%)
Sun: 146hrs (78%)</p><p>Durham
Mean Max: 15.1
Rainfall: 92mm (180%)
Sun: 89hrs (53%)

Elmdon
Mean Max: 16.9
Rainfall: 107mm (202%)
Sun: 119hrs (61%)</p><p>Heathrow
Mean Max: 18.6
Rainfall: 70mm (137%)
Sun: 133hrs (65%)</p><p>Manchester
Mean Max: 15.8
Rainfall: 174mm (276%)
Sun: 103hrs (54%)</p>

[Greeny1050mb]

I remember that June well. It was a month of cool summer weather (a cool northerly June) that was the feature of four cool summers on the trot from 1985-1988, although in actual fact even June 1987 was a slightly drier month than this May just gone in 2007, and not as wet as the Junes of 1997 and 1998. Looking at the charts June 1987 was dominated by prolonged spells of low pressure over Scandinavia and mid-Atlantic Highs ensuing a northerly flow over the UK much of the time, and often from way up into the Arctic.

We had a taste of those synoptics in the last week of May this year, but today we just never seem to get June 1987 and 85-88 summer synoptics to occur for any prolonged periods of time. Most recently the best we have come to these sort of cool summer synoptics was in August 2006, although the northerlies of that month were mainly from central Scandinavia and not from well up into the Arctic, so Aug 2006 saw not proper Arctic northerlies like June 1987, Aug 1986 etc, and the summers from 85-88 and we could still not manage the sort of cool CETs of yesteryear.

[Llevant]

Here June 1987 was wet too, but not so much as UK of course. Here we "remember" the June of 1992, it was extremely wet. In some places reached the 200 mm or 250. But, for the last 10 years June has been quite dry and hot.

[AndrewJM]

This was an unbelievably thundery month in the East Midlands as well. From memory there was a storm almost every day from the 7th to the 21st including some unusually fierce ones - unusual because of the total lack of warm/humid weather. During the peak days there were sometimes 3 totally separate storms over the course of the day. It was only towards the 24th that things suddenly settled down.

 Does anyone else have similar memories?

[Dave K]

This is my list of worst Junes from my own records + London sunshine hours. 1987 sure was a bummer, but not the worst here in the last 20 years! Just shows how badly a June can suck...

	Avg	Avg	Highest	Lowest	Total	Wet Days	Hrs
	Min	Max	Max	Max	Rain	>=1mm	Sun
1991	9.3	17.2	21.0	13.1	114.3	19	125
1997	9.8	18.0	28.0	13.0	65.7	18	126
1998	11.8	19.5	27.6	13.0	87.4	17	149
1987	11.3	19.4	26.6	13.7	98.6	12	158
1994	10.2	19.6	25.3	14.5	46.6	12	144

[AndrewJM]

The weather pattern we are now is is suspicioulsy similar to that exactly 20 years ago - a thundery low thats going nowhere fast!

[sunspoter]

Ooh, that's interesting because I've heard descriptions that the last time the River Tame flooded in the Midlands like it did yesterday was 10 years ago and before that a similar setup 10 years previous to 1997 in 87. Interesting, could this be a predictable 10 year cyclical event?

1991 was a poor June!

[AndrewJM]

Thats a good point 1997 was also identical with a good 2 weeks of slack low pressure and storms.

[sunspoter]

Three events? Hmmmm that's a pattern.
European monsoon every 10 years, is that progged into the models?

Seriously the 11 (+/- 1year) year cycle is pure perfection, very underrated.

[AndrewJM]

In both 1997 and 1987 things settled down in August and September with some longer spells of settled and often warm weather

[AndrewJM]

As indeed they did in 2007!!

[Greeny1050mb]

Summer 2007 produced synoptics different to what has often been the case in many recent years. Although June 2007 was the second wettest on record, it was still warmer than average overall. Low pressure often sat over or to the south of the UK but for most of the month air in the circulation of the low pressure areas was of tropical origin and it was only in the last week that winds with a northerly component covered the country.

July was somewhat different though - very wet and quite cool overall. It was generally a "cool zonal" type month with cyclonic conditions dominating and winds often from the west or north-west often with a source near Greenland - proper northerlies didn't occur in July 2007. If only July 2007 synoptics happened in winter, and orientated in the same way, we would have great cold zonal January 1984 type weather all over again!

August was different again - a much drier month and still overall quite cool, as low pressure was far less dominant than in July, and high pressure was often in the mid-Atlantic and this allowed northerlies to often affect the UK.

Summer 2007, especially July and August produced CETs below average, although given the frequent northerlies of August the month was not far from average, I would have expected the synoptics of August 2007 to have produced a proper cool month more like Aug 1993, but it didn't.

[summer '85]

This June is beginning to remind of this horror one from 25 years ago