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They really should release the actual figures. The raw numbers that are displayed on their own website plus others like meteociel and weather online are wrong and misleading. Still don’t understand why they don’t, considering they show the actual ranges on the anomaly maps.

raz.org.rain Not in summer though. Most deserts will still be 25-30c overnight. They can often get frost in winter. Las Vegas has a record low of -13c, which is the same as Heathrow. Albuquerque has colder average minimums that London from October until early April, (including an average January low of -3.1c which is colder than any part of the UK) and a record low of -27c. On the other hand, some desert climates are always warm, eg Djibouti has an average low of 21c in January and 31c in July.

Random and unrelated fact, but temperatures often drop to near freezing in the middle of the desert at night.

Mapantz aww hope you leave some treats for them

12.0c and 50mm

In other news; I have three hedgehogs in my garden right now. One large, two small.. ish.

TwisterGirl81 'though to not see a wisp of cloud somewhere in this country for a whole DAY would take a small miracle' I've just corrected your typo

Addicks Fan 1981 that warm April kills the 2007 analogue for me.

B87 that figure would get your sunshine stats back on the right track though to not see a wisp of cloud somewhere in this country for a whole month would take a small miracle though I’m surprised it hasn’t happened or that the sunshine monthly record has stood for over a century, crazy, must be one of the oldest records yet to fall? I thought this country was slowly meant to be getting sunnier

Mapantz As of today, we have just equalled our March total after 24 days of April, which takes our annual total to 334 hours. May 2020 alone saw 330. danm They do, but only on the maps. They should have the actual values available without having to FoI request them.

CryoraptorA303 The absolute maximum recordable sunshine in London in July with no horizon obstruction is about 445 hours. Any obstruction at all and that number will be lowered.

I recorded 304 hours of sunshine in May 2020. That's very close to what I have recorded so far this year.

TwisterGirl81 summer of 2007 was very busy for insurance companies because people got flooded out of their houses, many were irked as their houses were literally damaged, mind you it was also you could say a good season to canoe on the street sort of thing.

Assuming in June and July around 18 hours of sunlight can be received per day, then the physical limit for these months is 527 and 558 respectively. May will be slightly lower than this and August slightly lower than that, etc.. Of course no one expects to ever reach this high but 400 is theoretically well within the realms of possibility for June and July, and at a greater stretch, May and August.

Heathrow sun 1959 vs 2024 Jan: 76 vs 77 Feb: 55 vs 53 Mar: 104 vs 103 Apr: 139 vs 115-125? May: 221 vs ? Jun: 232 vs ? Jul: 277 vs ? Aug: 240 vs ? Sep: 209 vs ? Oct: 150 vs ? Nov: 53 vs ? Dec: 30 vs ? It is theoretically possible, just very very very unlikely.

Addicks Fan 1981 I checked met office anomaly and sunshine amounts looked just shy of average for here in summer but very wet pretty much everywhere in summer 2007

richie3846 383.9 hours in Eastbourne July 1911 certainly need a couple of those this year, all would be forgiven, boost everyone’s morale….is 400 even possible?

East Malling achieved 314 hours in May 2020, exceptionally high. Manston got even higher with 331. Incredibly, Preston is listed as reaching 378! I can somewhat believe this due to the sheltered coastal location from easterlies, but even then it sounds absolutely ridiculous. The next highest is Bournemouth with 353, which sounds far closer to the realms of reality. Could be this year, you never know. Probably much more likely to be August but no one could be sure of what's ahead.

CryoraptorA303 Assuming we start the summer with a 200 hour deficit, even a repeat of summer 2022 (June 242 hrs, July 250 hrs, August 263 hrs), would need us to see a 230 hour September (which would be the sunniest on record - 2018 saw 210 hours).

TwisterGirl81 I seem to remember this area reached something like 340 hours in May 2020. Isn't the record something like 390 for the UK?

Definitely, and as mentioned August was a significant improvement on the preceding two months as it often tends to be in the infamous summers, so overall sunnier than average. The hypothetical "dull January-May - sunny to varying degrees June-September - dull October-December" screwy case that I mentioned must've happened for real at some point. Well, more a string of cool, wet summers than anything which has happened in the past with much cooler results than what was experienced between 2007-2012. The wetness and mildness of that bracket would've been intensified by climate change. Importantly the May-July monsoon of 2007 came after the warmest CET 12 month period on record, so it's likely Atlantic SSTs were absolutely through the roof by this point.

TwisterGirl81 was summer 2007 one of your horror summers you can remember? It certainly was a notorious season alright, yet the summer overall had average amounts of sunshine and temperatures close to normal too, nevertheless though it was still a washout and coincided with rihanna featuring jay z with umbrella being number one in the charts for ages.

TwisterGirl81 350 hours in definitely possible on the south coast, and has happened before in hot/sunny summers. Heathrow has seen 3 months with more than 300 hours of sun. May 2020 (330 hours), May 1989 (310 hours), and July 2006 (302 hours). We are due a 300 hour June or August. The sunniest June was 294 hours in 1975, while the sunniest August was 295 hours in 1995.

Indeed, it was even duller than 2021 and that seemed like the bottom of the barrel. Of course, that depends. Unsettled doesn't necessarily mean totally Sunless as it depends on the exact synoptics but we will have to see. It's quite possible for a 200 hour deficit to be made up over the rest of the year from mid-May. Two of the summer months being sunny would be well on the way to closing the gap, and one of them being very sunny along with another sunny overall might outright close it. Even September still has at least 226 hours to potentially give (1911, the sunniest on record for Heathrow's region), although the sunniest in recent times is 2003 with 194 hours, which could still close the gap. If the rest of the autumn months chipped in with what they can give then we could even still end up with sunnier than average.

B87 strange why they don’t publish the true, corrected values…..