[Dave W]

Its been very dry in the far north to midmonth.. some places seeing just 1% of expected June RF so far

See this table from UKMO on their blog

Attached File(s)

•  Scottish stations June 1-13th low rainfall.doc (32.5K)
  Number of downloads: 47

[Dave K]

When I post my midmonth update to the BDG Ineternational Rainfall Challenge later today, you will see just how this compares to other areas. It's also notable that Western Norway has been very dry this month so far too, not surprising I suppose when all the LPs seem to stall and dump their load over England and Wales

http://www.ukweather...100#entry805529

[Dave W]

Worth saying this compares to Shoreham, Thorney Island and Wiggonholt breaking their overall June RF records by the 13th!

[Andy Mayhew]

Just been yet another big wildfire on Lewis this week.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...slands-18458551

[summer '85]

An indication of lows on a more southerly track and northerly blocking.

[BUTTERFLY]

A very interesting table - as this refers to the period from 1st to 13th June, in fact the percentages of average rainfall for this period are even lower, e.g. less than 0.5% for the driest area. Such a great contrast with about a year ago, e.g. in May 2011 when Manston in Kent had 4 mm and Cluanie Inn in Wester Ross had 468 mm - see http://www.climate-u...onthly/1105.htm

[nickw1]

Dave W, on 16 June 2012 - 11:23, said:

Worth saying this compares to Shoreham, Thorney Island and Wiggonholt breaking their overall June RF records by the 13th!

I can confirm it has been a hideous month so far in Southampton, with the lack of sun being even more notable than the rain.

This repeating pattern is extraordinarily depressing - we've had some variant or other of this southerly-jetstream pattern for the past five years, and the model runs suggest that we're getting it yet again this month.
With all seriousness it seems that if you want to take a summer holiday in the UK and get reliable weather these days, go to northern Scotland - it seems to get the best summer weather north of central France. Not warm,
but at least dry and settled. I wonder if one took the average pressure of summers 2007-12 (so far) the N of Scotland would get a mean easterly flow.

Nick

[MichaelG]

In this case there is aNE/NW split, not so much in tems of rainfall but in "niceness" if such a factor exists. This month has been vile here despite relatively low rainfall totals. Those totals mask the persistent drizzle on many days, the very low sunshine totals and suppressed daily maxima. All these are probably indicative of the easterly flow associated with the southerly tracking Lows.
If you want a reliable holiday based on recent patterns I would suggest the NW of Scotland not the NE (and yes technically according to the Met Office Aberdeen is in the East Scotland region, however in general public perception it is NE Scotland).

[BUTTERFLY]

NW Scotland appears to have been very wet at times in 2011, especially in May and again in September-October 2011; witness the very high monthly totals at Cluanie Inn in Wester Ross for some of the months of 2011, and the correspondingly low values at sites in central or eastern England, at http://www.climate-uk.com/page3.html

Of course so far this month it has been very dry in parts of the extreme north of Scotland, and North Scotland has also had the highest temperatures at times, with Scotland breaking its record values for both March and May. Incidentally I have heard the 29.3 deg. C. at Achnagart in Wester Ross on 25th May, although it is on the Met Office website, questioned; even if this is discarded, the next highest temperature of 29.0 deg. C. at Cromdale in NW Scotland still seems to be a Scottish May record, as the Monthly Weather Report for May 1992 gives 28.9, not 29.0 deg. C., at Edinburgh on 14th May (although the highest given for Britain that month was 29.5 deg. C. at Barbourne in Worcestershire on 20th May.

My own feeling though is that sometime this summer the normal pattern will reassert itself, with warmer, sunnier and drier weather in the south and east and duller wetter in the north and west - it nearly always does, although perhaps not if there is a repeat of the summer of 1968 which was better in relative terms in the NW compared with the SE. Northern Ireland had its sunniest summer on record up to that date, although subsequently there were a couple of sunnier ones (1995 and I think 1975); in August 1968, the sunshine values in the Outer Hebrides were about 8 hours/day compared with about 4 hours/day in parts of the SE. March in 1968 of course had a very warm spell at the end, as happened in 2012, but of course this does not necessarily mean that meterological history will repeat itself this year.