[snow hope]

This summer has been nothing other than terrible so far. With the Met Office outlook well into July remaining unsettled with below average temperatures, lets have a chat about what is going on! I am starting to think we really have entered a different regime regarding this year's summer weather. In N Ireland we have had 5 poor summers in a row now, but this one is actually much worse (so far) than any of the last five.

We are experiencing high volumes of rain and very cool maximum temperatures, with no light at the end of the tunnel. Even the South of England seems to be getting really lousy summer weather, so it must be quite a shock to those folks.

What do you think is the underlying cause and why? If you think there have been worse summers in the last 60 odd years, which ones? Anecdotally, my mother remembers some very poor summers in the early 60s in N Ireland, but she says this summer is the worst she can recall, so far.

[Dave K]

snow hope, on 23 June 2012 - 10:07, said:

This summer has been nothing other than terrible so far. With the Met Office outlook well into July remaining unsettled with below average temperatures, lets have a chat about what is going on! I am starting to think we really have entered a different regime regarding this year's summer weather. In N Ireland we have had 5 poor summers in a row now, but this one is actually much worse (so far) than any of the last five.

We are experiencing high volumes of rain and very cool maximum temperatures, with no light at the end of the tunnel. Even the South of England seems to be getting really lousy summer weather, so it must be quite a shock to those folks.

What do you think is the underlying cause and why? If you think there have been worse summers in the last 60 odd years, which ones? Anecdotally, my mother remembers some very poor summers in the early 60s in N Ireland, but she says this summer is the worst she can recall, so far.

And yet NI and NW Scotland are still actually doing better for sunshine than parts of central and southern England. So it depends entirely how you measure it I suppose.

[Dave W]

'So far' being the operative word though. Only 1 month in and things could well change ..

'Best' this month -to the 15th -was N Scotland though, although temps were 1.5C beow average the RF was just 43% of average and sunshine was 116%..

[summer '85]

Too early to call because we have still got July and August to go yet and it could go like 1991 which had a pretty respectable August. The Western Isles have done OK so far compared to most places.

[Dave K]

I would say 1985 definitely challenges this one so far, although I am going by stats as my memory certainly isn't good enough to compare summers of the last 40 years+ ( I suspect that is true of most of us if we are completely honest!). Here the temperatures in 1985 were below average for all three months, there were just a very few short warm/hot spells and June ( a little) and August ( very much) were both wet (totals and raindays). Don't know about sunshine though.

What marks this June so far is the combination of wind, rain and lack of sunshine, but we just don't know how it will pan out with less than 1/3 of it gone.

EDIT what I should say is that August was the worst month of the three and very like this June wrt temperature and rainfall. The high maxes were 22 °C, 28 °C and 24 °C for each month. Table won't display properly for some reason, but there were 48 raindays in total and 196.1mm rain. Avg max temp was 19.3 °C

This post has been edited by Big Dave's Gusset: 23 June 2012 - 10:36

[Andy Mayhew]

I'm pretty sure last summer was the worst, and the one before that and the one before that and probably next summer too

I admit though that this summer is so far a lot worse than last year which, in these parts at least, was nigh on perfect (unless you were a grower and needed rain, or, indeed, like thunderstorms) - with regular heatwaves interspersed with cooler (though not particularly wet) spells. On the other hand, so far it's not as bad as 2007 which, although June was warmer, was a much wetter season.

[John Mason]

Too early to call.... actually I've had a few very good days out in the sunshine over here, but it's been a matter of nose to the proverbial grindstone then grabbing opportunities wherever possible...

Cheers - John

[Ed.]

..And as nearly always, the near continent and slightly beyond, sizzles away, get their storms, and more often continue to sizzle away - the rest of the unsettled, cool, wet'n'windy, for better word "gunk" has to go somewhere..?
In the Autumn/Winter, even at a push Spring, all perhaps perfectly normal but during the alleged height of Summer, i shall re-iterate the word "gunk!!" again, and to just to keep it clean


There's no doubting the positioning of the thing we call the jet-stream has the biggest impact here and of course further afield, i'm not giving up hope just yet with plenty more time for things to even out in terms of RF amounts, warmth and sunshine amounts - although if we're still posting in here by mid/late August onwards, then things sure have gone slightly pear-shaped lol

Until then i shall try to remain positive

[Dave W]

Have to say June hasnt been terrible here on the Sussex coast by any means.. this is because coastal areas benefit from showery regimes in the summer .. we see less cloud as convergence zones move inland but we are cooler .. however in times of high insolation this makes less difference to most people as solar radiation is the dominant factor to coast dwellers in terms of perception of good weather in these months & not temperature -we are acclimatised/used to living with lower temperatures by day so the difference say between a 'warm' summers day with 21C and cooler day with a sea breeze and 17C is very little.

The bottom line is that in peoples minds at least coastal -southern- areas are rated as faring better in 'poor' summers than for those living inland .. who have to contend with more cloud, showers and relatively low temperatures


Im going to add this post into a seperate thread as i think its quite an interesting thought!

[Paulo]

1987 was a worse June here and apart from a warm start to July and a warm third week of August it remained pants. We have had 4 fine days in a row up to Wed last here. Thurs/Fri have been just plain awful again. The lack of any really warm settled spells have marked out the last 5 summers and this June might have the lowest mean pressure recorded in these parts if it keeps up. June 2009 and 2010 weren't bad at all for sun and warmth though and the best weather has often come in Spring and Autumn.

[Dave K]

Here, we haven't had a summer with above average sunshine since 2006. Not only the overall total but the number of days with sunshine hours > 10. Since 2006 only 2007 had above average rainfall at this site.

Definitely a short term trend here for cloudier summer days over this short series of years unlike the 80s which were more sporadic in lack of sunshine (1987 as mentioned above), and of course 1989 was exceptionally sunny. And cloudier conditions will usually mean cooler maxes but warmer mins. Sadly there's no way to judge if this trend will continue except to wait and see.

[Howard Kirby]

Living memory? That ofcourse depends ofcourse on how old you are LOL and how clear your memory is.

But we've only had 3 weeks so I'm not going to make any judgement until after the late August heatwave.

[staffsstormspotter]

dont start counting summer until AFTER the Wimbledon fortnight - more often than not it rains then.

Chris

[akkan]

I think it's because you make a point of measuring everything
I work outdoors gardening and drystone walling, and yes, it has been wet, and sometimes a bit too cold to wear just a Tshirt, but as I don't generally carry a thermometer with me I don't have that much to measure it against.
I haven't had to cancel a day's work yet though.
Only bad thing is I planted some moonflower seeds for the first time this year and it has been a bit too cold for them, apparently they like it to be above 13C, and the tomatoes aren't doing too well.

Last summer was also good, I remember telling people that on this forum people were saying how bad the summer was and the general response was incredulity and "do they live in Scotland?"

The "bad" thing about this summer is the same as last summer and the summer before that - we don't get thunderstorms here any more. I don't know if I count as living in the South though.

[Dave K]

staffsstormspotter, on 23 June 2012 - 12:48, said:

dont start counting summer until AFTER the Wimbledon fortnight - more often than not it rains then.

Chris

Actually the annual number of "washout days" for Wimbledon wouldn't make a bad marker for late June/early July since it is in the same place at roughly the same time each year so other variables don't come into play - well except for the newly roofed court! A quick downpour won't usually washout a whole day so it should denote days of prolonged wetness.

[willwood]

I've got no complaints about the summer so far. I personally much prefer these cooler, fresher conditions compared to weeks of intense heat and smog.

[Peter H]

The first 23 days have been pretty dire it's true. But there are 70 odd days left.

What is amazing is how 200mm of rain have pretty much disappeared - the ground is wet, but there isn't water everywhere like there would be in a similar winter month - and just how cold some days have been. I'm still to really understand how it can be below 11C at mid afternoon in June on a penninsula surrounded by a sea warmer than that and with the weather coming from the south (if 'RPm'ing from there).

[Ian Williams]

Well i have recorded 184.8 mm for the first 22 days of summer, nearby Plymouths average for the whole of summer using the 1971-2000 figures is 180.4 mm! It needs to drastically dry out and stop raining for most of the remaining 71 days!

[Dave W]

Its going to need a large pattern change then!

Having said that for the south at least its lookig pretty dry over next 2 weeks after Sundays rain acc to 06Z GFs ensembles.. http://www.meteociel...t=1&x=307&y=177

[Dave K]

I can't speak for other places but here we had above average sunshine for the months of October, December, January, February and March. In other words the months where people are least likely to make use of it. I know the weather doesn't obey the laws of averages but it's hard not to wonder if the natural world's checks and balances will result in this being a rather dull summer.

But 1995 here saw an almost equally poor start to June which flurished quite suddenly into a very good July and August, so the game is not over yet even if there is no immediate sign of a major change.