AderynCoch

I don't know about 1999 but 3rd July 2000 had a good thunderstorm here.

My tuppence: Central Asia is as far away from the world's oceans as you can get and subsequently not at the mercy of moderating maritime influences. Kazakhstan is hardcore continental - in winter it can be as cold as Siberia. Furthermore, north of Iran/Afghanistan there are no mountain barriers to stop hot air from the deserts moving northwards when the weather patterns permit. This effect is even more pronounced in the Great Plains of North America where there are no mountain barriers from the subtropical Gulf of Mexico right up into Arctic Canada, thus allowing airmasses from either origin to flood north/south (and occasionally interacting, causing severe weather including tornadoes). 49C has been recorded in Steele, North Dakota at latitude 46N - exceeded by only four other states and beating famously hot states like Texas and Utah.

A dark day for British weather-enthusiasts.

Lots of bland drizzle here. Ready salted weather.

I can't believe the storm in Hamburg is still going. Looks like they've had my perfect summer day - hot and steamy during the day with a big light show at night. Shame some of it couldn't transfer up this way. As usual.

Some widespread 30C values there. This was hardly a memorable summer, but it at least had the hot spells to go with the cool ones.

Fixed it for you.

<stands up> Hello everybody. My name is AderynCoch and I have seen no storms so far in 2013*. <sits down to sympathetic applause> *except in Australia

No high pressure to the north of us at all in that chart, meaning the jet stream had no problem transferring north again soon after. EDIT - ditto for the second chart

But those summers are the cream of the crop. All I'm asking for is a half-decent summer i.e. one which has plenty of warm, dry and sunny weather to go with the cool, wet and cloudy weather (as opposed to recent summers). Of course I would love a repeat of 1995 too (my own lazy, halcyonic childhood summer) but summers like that are rare anyway. Best to just let such a summer pleasantly surprise you when it finally shows up.

Also, I should clarify I'm not doom-mongering or anything. I can understand though why there's been a bit of knee-jerk reaction to it turning unsettled again after the recent settled spell: pretty much anything that could go wrong in recent summers has done, so there's bound to be a degree of apprehension in the air at the moment amongst warm-lovers. If this was 2007, I doubt anyone would be worrying about the rest of summer but given what summers have actually been like since then the feeling is different. Post #761 does give us reason not to panic just yet though.

What irritates me is how the overall pattern of it being unsettled keeps coinciding with the summer period, no matter what the pattern was like leading up to it. In 2010 and 2011 the spring pattern was generally a settled one with occasional unsettled interludes, before switching to unsettled in the summer. 2012 had a dry period in early spring but this time we reverted to unsettled in April: I was hopeful that this would mean that at least the next pattern change to settled would occur in the summer, but of course it just got even worse. I remember OldMetMan on the model thread commenting that in all his years he couldn't remember seeing a general background pattern lasting for so long without changing (or something like that) - it's almost as if the northerly blocking/southerly jet pattern had to last that long purely to make sure summer would go down the pan. Summer 2011 wasn't as bad as 2012, but even there we had a year dominated by warm synoptics only to find summer reverting to a cool, unsettled pattern - the second warmest year for the CET since 1659 and yet all three summers months were cooler than the 350-year average. Basically, our summer weather patterns in recent years have been defined by Sod's Law.

By the way, there goes another year without 30C being reached on 13th June. It's the only date in the three summer months when 30C hasn't been officially recorded anywhere in the UK.

No, we really are in a run of bad summers and no-one is going to convince me otherwise! If this summer doesn't end up being a write-off it'll be something of a relief. And if someone looks back at this period of summers in the future and paints it in a positive light, they'll either be one of laserguy's descendants or living in Greenland.

Well my bold guess of 16.0C is toast now. There may not even be a 16C daily mean at this rate.

I did a similar list a while back, only instead I used five or more consecutive days of 18C or above as the threshold (http://forum.netweather.tv/topic/63137-cet-hot-spells/). Here's the full list again (I originally miscalculated the last entry, but now it's corrected): 5-15th August 1773 – 19.65 12-16th July 1778 – 19.90 3-7th August 1778 – 18.92 9-16th July 1779 – 19.60 11-15th August 1779 – 19.38 26th August – 2nd September 1779 – 18.86 28th June – 3rd July 1780 – 18.85 8-13th August 1781 – 19.63 8-20th July 1783 – 19.48 17-21st August 1783 – 18.68 27th June – 1st July 1785 – 18.70 24-28th May 1788 – 18.58 9-14th August 1792 – 19.77 10-17th July 1793 – 20.41 14-18th July 1797 – 20.24 24-30th July 1797 – 19.26 30th July – 4th August 1800 – 19.92 15-20th August 1800 – 19.40 4-10th August 1802 – 18.71 12-17th August 1803 – 18.68 11-20th July 1808 – 21.40 18-24th June 1817 – 19.83 14-19th July 1818 – 19.08 21-27th July 1818 – 20.20 24-28th June 1820 – 20.92 12-20th July 1825 – 21.28 26th June – 11th July 1826 – 20.26 30th July – 3rd August 1826 – 19.60 25-31st July 1830 – 20.41 27th July – 1st August 1831 – 19.07 7-12th June 1835 – 18.93 23-28th July 1837 – 19.40 14-20th August 1837 – 18.76 3-7th June 1846 – 19.62 11-22nd June 1846 – 19.94 28th July – 2nd August 1846 – 20.25 10-16th July 1847 – 20.54 4-17th July 1852 – 20.38 30th July – 5th August 1856 – 20.19 9-14th August 1856 – 19.30 23-28th June 1857 – 19.22 31st July – 5th August 1857 – 18.90 15-20th July 1859 – 19.90 26-30th June 1866 – 18.94 9-15th July 1866 – 18.96 7-11th July 1868 – 18.72 1-6th August 1868 – 20.62 19-27th July 1870 – 19.56 9-14th August 1871 – 19.82 20-28th July 1872 – 19.34 13-18th July 1876 – 19.92 12-17th August 1876 – 21.20 23-29th June 1878 – 20.44 17-22nd July 1878 – 21.00 7-13th August 1884 – 20.50 23-27th July 1885 – 19.66 2-6th July 1886 – 19.06 7-13th July 1887 – 19.10 15-19th June 1893 – 19.74 8-21st August 1893 – 20.36 24-28th September 1895 – 18.58 2-7th August 1897 – 19.92 11-16th August 1898 – 19.32 3-9th September 1898 – 19.96 30th July – 5th August 1899 – 19.24 23-27th August 1899 – 19.66 18-28th July 1900 – 19.98 8-12th July 1901 – 19.02 17-21st July 1901 – 21.58 13-17th July 1904 – 18.84 11-15th July 1905 – 19.16 25th July – 3rd August 1911 – 20.08 7-14th August 1911 – 20.90 7-20th July 1921 – 20.45 5-15th July 1923 – 20.66 21-25th July 1925 – 20.66 11-15th July 1926 – 20.94 26-30th August 1930 – 21.54 16-20th August 1932 – 19.98 3-8th June 1933 – 19.67 2-8th July 1933 – 19.89 23-27th July 1933 – 19.38 3-8th August 1933 – 21.00 5-13th July 1934 – 19.89 21-25th June 1935 – 20.96 10-15th July 1935 – 19.83 1-7th August 1937 – 18.97 31st July – 11th August 1938 – 19.09 26-30th August 1939 – 18.28 5-10th June 1940 – 19.28 18-22nd June 1941 – 20.12 6-14th July 1941 – 20.04 27th July – 1st August 1943 – 20.30 9-13th July 1946 – 18.96 29th May – 4th June 1947 – 20.83 25th July – 3rd August 1947 – 19.71 12-23rd August 1947 – 20.28 25-31st July 1948 – 21.93 26-30th June 1949 – 19.64 21-27th July 1949 – 20.20 3-7th June 1950 – 19.92 26th June – 2nd July 1952 – 19.53 19-23rd July 1952 – 18.98 7-18th July 1955 – 19.43 30th July – 3rd August 1955 – 18.80 16-26th August 1955 – 19.95 15-19th June 1957 – 19.34 27th June – 1st July 1957 – 19.82 22-26th July 1959 – 19.32 19-26th August 1959 – 19.83 12-16th July 1969 – 19.84 7-11th June 1970 – 20.38 1-6th August 1970 – 19.07 7-12th July 1971 – 18.92 13-17th August 1973 – 19.96 27th July – 15th August 1975 – 20.35 22nd June – 9th July 1976 – 22.04 11-16th July 1976 – 18.78 11-26th August 1976 – 19.05 1-6th June 1982 – 19.45 30th July – 6th August 1982 – 19.31 4-18th July 1983 – 20.81 22-31st July 1983 – 19.45 17-26th August 1983 – 18.98 18-25th August 1984 – 19.70 29th August – 3rd September 1984 – 19.02 26-30th June 1986 – 20.06 16-20th June 1989 – 19.10 17-26th July 1989 – 20.67 18-22nd July 1990 – 19.50 30th July – 4th August 1990 – 21.25 22-29th August 1990 – 19.63 31st August – 4th September 1991 – 18.98 20-27th July 1994 – 19.40 7-14th July 1995 – 19.41 24th July – 6th August 1995 – 21.04 15-23rd August 1995 – 20.81 19-23rd July 1996 – 19.48 17-21st August 1996 – 19.60 6-23rd August 1997 – 20.84 7-11th August 1998 – 19.34 7-12th July 1999 – 19.15 30th July – 6th August 1999 – 20.08 2-6th September 1999 – 18.82 1-7th July 2001 – 20.33 25th July – 1st August 2001 – 19.60 26-30th July 2002 – 19.84 13-19th July 2003 – 20.13 4-13th August 2003 – 21.69 1-12th August 2004 – 19.71 14-18th August 2004 – 18.38 10-15th July 2005 – 20.63 30th June – 6th July 2006 – 20.64 16-30th July 2006 – 21.21 23-31st July 2008 – 19.28 27th June – 3rd July 2009 – 20.39 26th June – 2nd July 2010 – 18.60 The five-day period 28th September-2nd October 2011 just missed the cut (four days of 18C+ follwed by a 17.9C) - had it made it to the list it would have been the latest hot spell in the calendar and the first to go into October.

Highest I can find is Camborne with 84.4 hours (http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/CURR.html), though that probably doesn't include today's figures. There's still some way to go to pass last June's dismal equivalents, though the 43.3 hours recorded so far at Eskdalemuir isn't too far from last year's paltry monthly aggregate of 57.8 hours.

A very nice spell here. As mentioned the temperatures really aren't that notable, but at this time of year the strength of the sun means that a lack of cloud/rain and wind makes a real difference in how it feels - 20C under blue skies and calm winds will feel summery but 20C under heavy rain and strong winds won't. Thankfully the former scenario is prevailing at the moment. It feels so cathartic after last year's diabolical autumnal June. Looking into next week, it looks as though the unsettled breakdown won't last too long before ridging from the south brings a return to settled conditions. For some of us at least. I've so often found myself frustratingly on the wrong side of NW-SE splits these past few summers, thanks to the southerly tracking jet impeding the Azores High from ridging far enough north, but this time with the jet to the north (where it bloody well should be!) I'm more confident that I'll be on the right side of the split. Unless of course I've just jinxed it.

I see how they can be intimidating. They're big, noisy, narky-looking things. I was five when the pasty I was enjoying disappeared in a flash. Nearby an old lady had her large baguette taken from her and dragged through the sand - she still made her husband chase after it, probably out of spite. I actually have quite a bit of affection towards seagulls (they get a lot of bad rep) but the ones in St Ives are a different breed altogether - proper avian thugs! Having your food nicked is practically a rite of passage there.

If those anomalies make it through to winter it could be interesting.

Having worked outside lifting heavy objects in a not-too-dry 40C heat in the super-strong tropical sun, I'll happily take 30C in this country sitting in a beer garden or the like.

St. Ives and Scarborough would get my vote. By the way you haven't 'done' St. Ives until you've had your pasty stolen by a seagull.

Reminds me very much of the floods in Summer 2002. Passau was badly flooded then and is again now. The centre of Prague got evacuated too.

No. Next question.

I think I'll ramp it this month. 16.0C