richie3846

B87 weather doesn't follow neat organised plans, even if we don't like it. There was average sunshine last year for most, and it's only April, with 3 out of 4 months below average. Let's see where we are at the end of the year. Still 8 months to go, and as last year showed, a poor spring didn't cause a below average year in terms of sunshine. Rain tends to go up and down in broader patterns. We'll have another dry spell soon enough.

B87 yes, not so difficult in the summer really, especially where each month is now above 20c as a baseline. Very cool months in the summer are not achievable like they are in the winter. December 2010 events in the summer aren't on the cards at all. We aren't set up for an evenly balanced 4 months of over 200 hours of sun each month. It's not our climate.

B87 B87 not really comparable. Sun is on and off, binary when it comes to recording it. Temperature isn't binary. There's no comparison here, they are totally different.

SunSean what a crazy situation. There's me thinking the table of calculations would cover all. So basically there's no point comparing any data at all, and we only really have the met office climate summary maps, to help us figure out the realistic picture.

danm I've saved a screenshot shot of B87's calculation table for future reference. Very useful. I'm thinking a lot of the ongoing discussions about sunshine over the years, may have been unintentionally misleading and pessimistic because of this discrepancy. I'd say this topic needs bringing to the forefront from time to time, to remind people of the adjustments, and to check their sources of information for raw or adjusted data, where that is possible.

113.6 hours sunshine at Brize Norton, my nearest met office site. I'm assuming the weatheronline.co.uk figures are raw data. If so that'll be around 124 hours of adjusted figures. With 6 days left, it seems likely that we'll end up being only slightly below average, quite a turnaround from the opening week. The middle two weeks were quite sunny, more than average, so overall the month has felt quite reasonable here. So 365 hours this year so far. It appears we've not been as cloudy locally compared with some other areas. Thanks to B87 for providing the adjustment table. I'll use that from now on, I've saved a screenshot for future reference. Worth mentioning that when we're looking at sunshine folks, it may be useful to find out, or try and work out if the data source is raw or adjusted. I'm getting a vibe that sometimes people are looking at the raw data, and therefore believing it's cloudier than it is compared to average. I worked out that weatheronline.co.uk uses raw data, because their numbers don't match the met office climate summaries.

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

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?

B87 I thought London had average sunshine last year. Most of the UK had average sunshine last year.

Bristawl Si Bristawl Si Looking good! I've been following your work for a few days now, and how you've been working around the weather!

CryoraptorA303 there were less than 70mm of rain between April and June, Heathrow. That's enough to cause a brown off. In the height of summer it only takes about 4 weeks with no rain to cause this to happen. It starts to happen with SMD of more than 75mm. In those conditions in 2015, SMDs would have exceeded 100mm probably by the end of May, 2 dry months on the bounce. Once the soil is dry further down, it takes usually over an inch of rain, at least, to begin to revive the roots and produce new growth. Bristawl Si I hope we get to see some photos of your recent handywork

This data is from my home weather station. Other than the cold spell in January, the temperature hasn't really changed that much over the 4 months period. With the end of April being much cooler than the general trend of the year, it's basically flatlined the whole thing. The beady eyed may notice the lack of air frost after January. Just a few days in February, and none since. I found it interesting that a well above average period has now been balanced with a below average spell, resulting in a relatively even temperature over a very long period. With 41mm rain recorded, this could be the first average or slightly below average month for a long time, depending on what happens in the last few days of April of course.

Brown grass happens most years in this area. It can be down to soil type as well as weather. Soil moisture deficits of over 100mm are usually enough to cause it to happen, and this occurrence is in most years of the last 10 to 15. It's not a south of France phenomenon. It even happens as far west as Cirencester. Witney and Carterton are particularly prone because they seem to have sandy soils. Many summers reach deficits of 125 to 150mm in the south east as far west as Cirencester

In Absence of True Seasons yes it's very common over this way too. Most summer seasons see some sort of yellow grass stage. Some years it's really yellow by the end of September. It does depend on soil type also, some areas are the first to turn, usually sandy soils, with the clay tending to go patchy brown instead of full on brown. It could even happen this year, it doesn't take long, 4 or 5 weeks of dry weather in summer usually does the job.

reef it's all so confusing. I did a comparison between raw figures and met office climate summary maps. They definitely tweak the numbers upwards for the maps.

Apparently it was below 9c on the 28th April 2020. Below 10c at Heathrow for the last 3 days of 2018. Less than 10c on the 28th April 2012 Less than 10c on the 29th, 2004. So today's cold at Heathrow is certainly fairly rare, though nothing unusual, with a return period of about 4 to 5 years for the last third of April, this century so far.

Daniel* we could do with seeing the records for the few days before and after this date. I doubt it's exceptional in the last 10 days of the month overall. The specific date this cold day occurs is more chance than anything exceptional. I'd expect other days within 3 or 4 days of this date to be colder.

Daniel* the guy makes an amendment, the record lows posted are for the 4th week, so this 3rd percentile is clearly nonsense sorry.

Daniel* yes 3 percent will happen once a year on average, roughly. Do the maths. It's not wrong. Also this guy is posting before the end of the day!

ANYWEATHER oh yeah it's definitely on the bottom end of the range. My original point was, it's not that wet and not too windy, so doesn't feel unpleasant really, for work. It could have been worse and we should be grateful for small mercies. As usual, it turned into a massive debate

B87 yes I think you had one or two of the 20c days too.

ANYWEATHER No it's not exceptional. The majority of Aprils have days in single figures. I just browsed weather data for Brize Norton and the vast majority of years over the last 15, have days below 10c. This is just a normal April day even if people don't like it, it's normal had happens most years I'm afraid. Let's not get preferences get in the way of facts. B87 What are you on at the moment? We've got the longest days of April to come, so totals can increase quite quickly.

B87 We are on 108 hours of sunshine with 9 days left, so locally we may pass 150 hours. It's been a reasonable month round here, once we got past the first few days. Also I'm pretty sure around 10 percent gets added on to the raw figure. We've discussed this before but it does seem you are comparing adjusted data to raw figures on a regular basis.

ANYWEATHER most Aprils have a couple of days like this. It's what happens in spring, so expectations are for some nice weather and some cooler days, in my head anyway

SunSean when you take out all of the comparisons and expectations, it's not actually that bad! It's a lot worse with expectations and comparisons! Just taking each day at face value gives a much more objective appraisal. It's not uncomfortable and it's a lot better feeling than a January day of the same temperature, presumably there is some UV coming through the cloud improving the feel. I'm out in it working so I don't really care what it's like on an average April day. It's what it is right now, and it's reasonable for work, not for sitting in the garden of course!