Snowshine

I hope Wednesday and Thursday are not as cloudy as models are suggesting. Having warm temperatures is no good if there's little to no sunshine.

It's not especially hot, temperatures will be around 25C on the warmest days which is perfect for summer.

Slightly warmer here further south at 14.9C, but it still feels especially cool, even for this summer.

The most notable thing today is not the wind or the rain, but the temperatures. Birmingham hasn't exceeded 12C and it isn't expected to get any warmer. The last time such a low temperature was locally recorded in August was 2010 (12.8C).

Most days have been autumnal since July, but today is basically like a mild winter's day. Much of the Midlands is struggling to exceed 15C, it could be record breaking for August.

Another exceptionally poor Saturday tomorrow, which seems to be a pattern this summer.

No thunderstorms but a reasonable day here, actually glad we missed the band of rain to our south.

These are some seriously poor temperatures forecasted for next week.

It's a Northerly flow, so temperatures will really struggle, especially in Northern areas (as one would expect). It certainly won't feel like summer.

First week of August dominated by northerly winds and low pressure, a truly depressing start to the final month of summer! Not much sign of improvement by the second week either.

Horrific start to August next week

It gets worse.

Yes it has been exceptionally dull in the West Midlands, because for some reason the region has been a cloud magnet (as is evident today).

Weren't any thunderstorms today, but after a cloudy morning it actually felt more like summer. Rain falling overnight allowing for sunny spells by tomorrow afternoon.

Really? Looks wet and grim in most of South Yorkshire according to the radar/satellite.

A washout day after a nice spell of weather is often welcome, but this month has had more than enough wet and grim weather. Also, any respite tomorrow is probably limited to central/southern areas as yet another band of rain moves southwards across the country, reaching all areas by Monday.

I don't think it's necessarily summer as a whole that's been garbage (as of yet), but rather this month. Spring was garbage, and so it would be unfortunate if the remainder of Summer remained as miserable as it is. All eyes are on August, but it does look like the first half of the month isn't offering much respite.

So after a surprisingly decent day yesterday, it's back to the usual today. As for Saturday, it's looking to be an exceptionally dire day - 16C and persistent rain all day.

The argument that some people here have against climate change doesn't really make sense. Just because a heatwave in a particular location hasn't been the most severe in history, doesn't mean that on a global scale temperatures haven't increased. Having said that, I do think heat warnings are being issued unnecessarily at times, and consequently people may end up taking them less seriously. For instance, in Greece they issued a "red heat warning" in the Ionian Islands where temperatures are only slightly higher than normal.

So we shouldn't attempt to make things look better or improve them because "it's not broke"? Going by this logic, the site would still look like this:

Nonsense. The latest long-term outlook by the Met Office (and other credible forecasters) is depressing. We're almost guaranteed to be stuck with low pressure until at least the end of the month, unless you're talking about another country that is?

You know, if it wasn't for the longer days I wouldn't be able to tell if it's July or October, especially on days like today. We skipped Spring, and after one month of Summer we seemed to have advanced to Autumn.

Yeah there's been a few nice visuals, albeit nothing spectacular. For those interested, here is a map showing every recorded lightning strike in the region over the last 30 days.

Really am getting tired of this month now. Barely any sunshine to speak of, and not a single thunderstorm (which is in contrast to most areas of the Midlands). Bring on August for crying out loud!

Seems that my location has dodged every storm over the last three weeks... today being no exception. Southern areas have also been missing out in general.