Up to 0600 hours on 23rd July, a number of places in Scotland had had less than 40 hours of sunshine; Eskdalemur was on 24.0 hours, Aberdeen Dyce 28.6 hours, Aviemore 30.9 hours, Edinburgh Gogarbank on 33.5 hours and Lerwick 39.6 hours. Only Jersey St. Helier at 145.5 hours, Tiree at 114.8 hours and Manston at 100.2 hours were greater than 100 hours, though Cork Airport was only just behind at 99.9 hours; percentages ranged from 18% at Eskdalemuir to 60% at Cork Airport, which translates respectively to 25.4% and 84.5% for the period 1st to 22nd July - see
http://www.met.readi...rugge/CURR.html
The lowest monthly sunshine total for July in Britain is in July 1984, with 49.6 hours at Duartmore Bridge, Highland, Scotland, in July 1984 - see
http://www.ukweather..._1#entry808832. Eskdalemuir would need to add 25.6 hours in the last 9 days; although in theory easily obtainable, with only 2 really sunny days averaging 12.8 hours, needed, if the current average daily sunshine of 1.1 hours per day was kept up, then this would add only about 10 more hours. There seems a distinct possibility therefore that Eskdalemuir may break a low British monthly sunshine record for the 2nd month in succession, following the 57.8 hours in June; however it should be remembered that sunshine there has in recent years been measured electonically, while it was measured with a Campbell-Stokes recorder in the past.
http://www.climate-uk.com/page2.html gives, for the 1st to 15th July 2012, sunshine percentages ranging from 26% in East Scotland to 86% in Northern Ireland; living in the latter area, it does not seem to me to have been anything like this sunny this month (I also had considerable reservations about the published Met Office sunshine figures for Northern Ireland in July 2011, of about 180 hours or c. 130% of average). Of the 6 Northern Ireland stations shown at
http://www.met.readi...rugge/CURR.html, only Aldergrove (Belfast International Airport) has sunshine figures shown for the period up to 0600 hours on 23rd July. These are 54 hours, 41% of the monthly total, or about 57.7% of the average for 1st to 22nd.
Jersey St. Helier has averaged 6.6 hours per day up to 0600 hours on 23rd, with Tiree on 5.22 hours; I don't have figures for averages but these may not be too far from their daily average in July; they are certainly better than the 1.1 hours per day so far at Eskdalemuir or 1.3 hours at Aberdeen Dyce. These averages would be what one might expect during November to January, but remember this is in July, when there are probably on average around 16 hours of daylight and hence possible sunshine!
Dull weather is to me even more depressing in summer than winter; not only is it (slightly!) more unexpected, but as the days are much longer, one has to view the grey skies for about twice as long (in winter as it soon gets dark in late afternoon, one does not notice the cloudy skies after it gets dark, so much).
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