LetItSnow!

Weather Enthusiast91 1978. I'll do one. The previous December had given hopes of a classic winter to come, perhaps even the winter before had been a "teaser winter". The year started with a great frost but it quickly fell apart and the rest of the winter was, at times, record-breakingly mild. The spring was a mixed bag and the summer was generally quite poor though parts of the country saw some very big storms from around July 29th and through the first-half of August. September provided some relief after the drab summer. The autumn was generally more shades of grey (not a clue, this was before that book! THAT is a time frame clue though). December was almost a classic but near miss synoptics and poor uppers meant we missed out and Christmas was very green and brown.

To be fair, I do remember seeing a couple days ago the first idea of a warmer pulse of air and commenting on it, though at that time it was on the 10th, now it's probably around the 12th. Taking my usual look at the GFS (left) and ECM (right), they show a general agreement until the 13th. High pressure naturally relaxing back eastward and drawing up a very warm south-easterly flow, though with weakening pressure a risk of things going BANG and maybe more general thundery rain. How they individually handle weakening pressure by the 16th is different though. The GFS is keen to send the low into Europe and build a ridge in, possibly dry and warm weather after a thundery break. The ECM is much different and forms a major low pressure system which would risk further deluges and a wet May. Both ensembles show signs of at least weak pressure over the country by Thursday the 16th. At the moment it seems this is the signal so by day 10 it could remain quite thundery with some torrential downpours and longer spells of rain around. Either way though it's all looking warmer than average. Even if something like the ECM came off it would probably return warmer than average means due to mild nights. Things can change though. We've seen before a run pick something up and then be right so don't discount a more settled look, but to me I think unsettled, and possibly thundery, is a relatively safe look for mid-month.

Since 1993 has been resurrected a little in another thread, I thought I'd point out that I had no idea 1993 was as dull of a year as it was. I'd never assumed it was a sparkling year by any accounts, but is the 6th dullest year on record for the UK wide series, so a very gritty year indeed. summer blizzard Not a cold autumn by any stretch but it is funny how the temperature anomalies did indeed reduce by the autumn. Something which would not have been easily believed at the time you typed this comment back in May 2007!

Anti-1958 using reverse coloured maps and Met Office data. January anti-1958: Changeable. Slightly milder and duller than average; dry. A week of very mild, balmy SW'lies from the 18th to the 25th before a spectacular drop in temperature with winds turning to the north by month's end. C.E.T.: 4.3 (+0.4) / EWP: 68.6mm (84%) / Sunshine: 96% February anti-1958: Very dry and very sunny but rather cold. Coldest further south. C.E.T.: 3.0 (-1.1) / EWP: 29.4mm (45%) / Sunshine: 130% March anti-1958: Mild, wet and rather dull. Some very warm spring temperatures. Exceptional warm spell mid-month for the time of year mid-month with 23-24C widespread across the London/Home Counties region. C.E.T.: 7.4 (+1.6) / EWP: 83.2mm (134%) / Sunshine: 97% April anti-1958: Very wet and rather mild with about average sunshine. Notable warm spell early on culminating on the 5th with temperatures into the low/mid 20s. C.E.T.: 8.8 (+0.7) / EWP: 108.4mm (184%) / Sunshine: 102% May anti-1958: Dry and slightly warmer than average. Average sunshine. Rather changeable and cool at times in the first-half but becoming warmer and drier later. C.E.T.: 11.7 (+0.3) / EWP: 48.1mm (75%) / Sunshine: 100% June anti-1958: Very dry and very sunny; warm by day but with cool nights so overall near normal temperatures. Exceptionally dry for most of England and Wales but closer to normal rainfall across Scotland. C.E.T.: 14.3 (+0.1) / EWP: 34.1mm (51%) / Sunshine: 136% July anti-1958: Changeable but overall dry with near-normal temperatures and sunshine. Particularly dry in NI. C.E.T.: 16.3 (+0.2) / EWP: 66.5mm (84%) / Sunshine: 103% August anti-1958: Very sunny and dry but with near-normal temperatures. Generally a lot of usable sunny, warm and dry weather with no great heatwaves. C.E.T.: 15.8 (-/+) / EWP: 56.9mm (69%) / Sunshine: 138% September anti-1958: Cold and dry. Generally sunnier in the Midlands and the west but dull in the east. C.E.T.: 11.9 (-1.6) / EWP: 43.7mm (54%) / Sunshine: 102% October anti-1958: Wet and on the chilly side. Dry and at first but turning more cold and unsettled as the month progressed. Particularly cold by night, especially from the 20th-23rd. C.E.T.: 9.6 (-0.6) / EWP: 109.7mm (114%) / Sunshine: 103% November anti-1958: Wet and stormy but very sunny. The month was remarkably wet across the Lake District region. Rain fell every day across much of southern England in the second-half of the month. C.E.T.: 6.4 (-/+) / EWP: 153.5mm (165%) / Sunshine: 133% December anti-1958: Dry, sunny and slightly cooler than average. Unsettled at first but becoming anticyclonic. C.E.T.: 4.1 (-0.4) / EWP: 67.3mm (78%) / Sunshine: 132% Annual C.E.T. - 9.47C (-0.03) Annual EWP - 869.4mm (94%)

The biggest difference between very warm years of the past was that even then there was usually at least one cool/cold month in the mix. You wouldn't get a autumn that chilly now. Nowadays it would probably pan out more like: Jan 6.9 Feb 6.0 Mar 6.9 Apr 10.0 May 11.7 Jun 15.2 Jul 18.3 Aug 16.1 Sep 13.8 Oct 10.6 Nov 7.0 Dec 7.6 Annual: 10.8

Derecho Wow! A May that warm would send the spring record flying and certainly put us far ahead in the runnings to record a 11C year again. Certainly seems since September 2021 we've entered a new phase entirely, off the scale. Only time you can compare it to is May 2006-April 2007 and even then it lasted only about a year. Exciting but worrying times. I'll certainly be watching the model output carefully.

Frigid I'm usually the first to notice things like that! Interesting

WYorksWeather It depends on the second half, which is uncertain. But some of the patterns suggested look quite unsettled. To be fair it's not just the 2nd and 6th that have seen some rain here. I agree though. If you had a summer month with a big storm on the 1st but the rest of the month was mostly rainless/light rain then you wouldn't think of it as a wet month. But whether that happens or not is undetermined at this stage.

Summer8906 If you flick through the charts for March 1998 it makes sense. That long HP spell mid-month but also even when it was wet and stormy here there tended to be a pronounced ridge around the mid-Atlantic/Azores. The effects of El Nino at play...

Things could change but with a weakening of pressure likely by the 13th/14th and with such heavy rainfall in places this month already I feel like May will be another one to add to the wet pile...

A hypothetical thread just for fun, but I've wondered what a year would look if you took the pressure anomalies from the opposing month and see what results it would produce. For example, taking any given January, looking at the 500mb height anomaly and seeing what it might bring in July. A similar concept to the anti-#### thread but instead of flipping the weather, it's flipping the season. One of my ideas @Summer8906 I thought I'd start with July 1997-June 1998, a period that featured quite a lot of unseasonable weather. Perhaps flipping it might bring something interesting in a different way. I'll start with July 1997, our hypothetical January. We'll call this year 7991. Oh, and some artistic liberties were taken at times. I wasn't as detailed as usual though. A cold month with frequent easterlies, though mild in the far north. One of those near-miss months where the brunt of the cold floods into France and Spain. Coldest and snowiest across the south and east. Never extremely cold but a lack of any notably mild weather. Quite a lot of anticyclonic, frosty and foggy weather. January 7991 - 2.6C / 33mm A very blocked month with frequent snowfall and very cold at times. More of an Atlantic influence at times with fronts giving heavy snowfall to south-western areas. I'm thinking there'd be a big February 1978 style blizzard at some point during the month. Because of that slight Atlantic influence, not as extremely cold as you may think but still a severe month. Exceptionally dull. February 7991 - 0.5C / 50mm Very and rather mild. I imagine a gentle thaw as HP repositions itself and lots of anticyclonic conditions, cold, foggy and frosty at first but eventually warming up with some quite spring-like conditions at times. Perhaps dull in the north though as weather fronts straddle Scotland. March 7991 - 6.7C / 25mm Much like the original month, changeable but quite sunny. Alternating between tastes of summer and tastes of winter. A spell of unusually potent northerlies/north-easterlies which bring severe frosts and some heavy snow. April 7991 - 7.5 / 52mm Wet and unsettled but warm thanks to a permanent southerly element to the winds. Often quite dull but with some very warm/hot spells. Very thundery. Minima particularly high. May 7991 - 12.7C / 94mm Unsettled; cool by day but rather mild minima. Generally wet but quite thundery with slack troughs giving some locally biblical totals. Dry and sunnier in the far north. June 7991 - 14.2C / 103mm A warm but thundery month with high pressure often to the east but low pressure to the south-west. An exceptional plume of heat with daily records shattered but also some general fine weather under a strong ridge of high pressure, but generally unstable with a lot of thunder. A very continental feeling month. Humid. July 7991 - 18.1C / 84mm A very hot month with some record breaking temperatures. High pressure dominated with only the far north being at the behest of weather fronts. Particularly hot by day with a long spell of 30+C days. A less hot second-half stopping the month from being the hottest ever. August 7991 - 18.7C / 28mm Generally warm and dry away from the far north. A sunny, warm and dry month in the same slightly offset by some cold nights. Mostly settled but with some shortlived autumnal topplers from time to time. September 7991 - 14.3C / 47mm Exceptionally wet and often windy but with some potent cold spells at times including an exceptionally early snow event across northern England and the Midlands. October 7991 - 9.2C / 177mm Generally rather mild in the north but cold in the south. A lot of anticyclonic weaher, often dry and fine with frost and fog in the south, but less prone to fog in the far north due to closer proximity to weather fronts. A very non-descript month. November 7991 - 6.1C / 48mm Mild, stormy and wet with frequent Atlantic lows and only brief cold snaps. December 7991 - 5.6C / 140mm Annual C.E.T. - 9.68C (+0.18C) Annual rainfall - 881mm (96%) Are there any other July-January periods you think would be interesting flipped?

Looks as though the pivoting of the bands of rain may end up with another spell of moderate rainfall for us later. I imagine some rather big totals in this area today.

Some videos from the flooding in the Bradford area. Absolutely bonkers totals. Falling on exceptionally saturated ground too.

Answering your queries about temperature anomalies for the rest of Europe in the summer of 1986: June 1986 July 1986 August 1986 Summer 1986 Strange summer for Scandinavia, very hot June but a freezing cold August. We had a summer like that back in 1896, may have to do a thread on that one. Would be the second thread on 1896 I've ever done as I covered the bitterly cold autumn years ago.

Summer8906 Maybe I'll start it! I've got some ideas for fun weather game threads. Guessing games, fantasy years etc. This site needs some fun threads.

Schnee Storms having an extra impact in terms of flash flooding countrywide due to how wet the soil is probably.

Would love to know if anyone's under that Bradford area cell / see footage

Purple colours showing on the radar while these cells are basically not moving... Got a feeling flash flooding will be being reported this afternoon/evening.

June 1993 was a warm month everywhere and unexceptionally sunny in most places, the exceptions being Scotland and Northern Ireland where it was dull. Extremely wet in the south-west, south Wales and the Midlands but drier elsewhere. Culdrose, Cornwall saw 443% of the average rainfall, a large chunk of that being the 123mm of rain that fell on the 8th. The month was slightly wetter than average overall (103%). June 1993 was probably most memorable for the very thundery spell mid-month, otherwise it wasn't anything to write home about. The highest temperature of the month was 28.6C at Northolt on the 8th. Here are some reports from those violent thunderstorms: The C.E.T. of 15.0C was quite warm (+0.8C above normal). It solidified the first-half of 1993 as very warm indeed (January-June averaged +1.0C) with perhaps some ideas that 1993 was heading the same way as the likes of 1989 and 1990 in terms of being a very warm year. But things change very quickly... well, they still just about could back then. July 1993 spoiled the hopes of a hot summer. It was cool with a C.E.T. of 15.1C, just +0.1C above June's C.E.T. and a full degree below average. It was dull in most places though not quite as dull in the east and the Midlands. Poor Culdrose in Cornwall really had the **** end of the stick with rain as after a June with 443% rainfall, July 1993 had 255%. The same areas tended to be wet, the south-west and south Wales, though it was a wet month overall but not by much (112% of normal). The first few days of the month were fine and the year's highest temperature was recorded on the 4th, a tame 29.7C at East Bergholt, Suffolk. This is the last time the annual maximum failed to reach 30C. The month is best remembered for a vigorous cold front that came down on the 9th and changed the entire course of the year. It was so strong that mid-day temperatures widely fell into single digits as low as 7-8C in places. Whipsnade had a midday temperature of 7.5C. At Heathrow the temperature fell from 18.5C to 10.7C in minutes in the early afternoon. August 1993 was the coldest but driest month of the summer with a C.E.T. of 14.6C (-1.2C) and 66% average rainfall overall, though east and north-eastern coastal areas were wet (Whitby had 278% the norm). It was sunny in the southern-half of England and Wales but very dull in Scotland. There is a very interesting video to send you back in time, it's VHS footage of a trip round London. It was taken on the 4th of August, 1993 on a very grey and rainy looking day. The highest temperature of the month was just 26.7C at Elmstone, Kent on the 20th. September 1993 was a cold and very wet September, dashing any ideas of an Indian summer. It has a C.E.T. of just 12.3C (-1.2C) and 148% average rainfall. Only the far north-west of Scotland was sunnier and dryer than average. Sunshine totals were as low as 50% around Shropshire and rainfall exceeded 300% of the norm in parts of East Anglia. Nonetheless, a very pleasant start to the month with the warmest temperature of the month being 27.2C in Great Malvern on the 1st. The high quickly repositioned itself to something colder from the north afterwards. Extremely unsettled from the 7th to the 16th with two vigorous low pressure systems coming in from the south-west. Thunderstorms across the SE on the evening on the 7th with further storms around on the 8th. Further heavy rain spread north on the 12th with very heavy outbreaks across many parts of the country accompanied by gale force winds. Fylingdales, North Yorkshire saw 75mm on the 13th. Wet weather remained over the east until the 16th. A remarkably cold end to the month with the 27th being one the coldest September days since 1918. The summer of 1993 stats for the C.E.T. and the EWP series: 14.9C (-0.5C) 211.8mm (93%)

Metwatch Was just thinking about that thread earlier with it being 20 years. A funny summer. Summer 2020 was very, very similar with identical CETs funnily enough. Even the autumns weren’t a million miles apart. Though January 2021 was far better than January 2005 so the similarities ended soon. B87 Yes, I was born in February 2001. Summer 2001 seems decent.

Metwatch That continental style autumn you speak of was pretty much autumn 2016. Hot September, quaint but normal October but very dry, then a cold November with a lot of frost. My favourite autumn and perhaps season of all time. There was only about one gale the whole season. The colours were remarkable. After a June which may have been one of the wettest months known ever locally, it became very dry in July and August, so the drier ground mixed with the seasonal conditions and no wind storms meant the leaves were stunning. Gosh, I loved autumn 2016. Back to present day, this Bank Holiday Monday will go down as one of the bigger duds in London’s history. Poured with rain all day so far. Even the sunshine at dawn occurred with spits of rain. Some of it’s been really heavy too. The 2nd and 6th alone will stop this from being notably dry even if high pressure is to rule. It’s also the second 6th of May in a row to pour with rain all day.

Scorcher I checked and the precipitation charts show a big blob of rain over Scotland early in the day for some reason and into northern England so is it picking up a weather front grazing the top of the high, limiting temperature via cloud cover? Seems unusual. I would have expected decent thickness, uppers between 6-8C and strong May sun with light winds to give widespread 20-25C maxima.

Blob of rain on the way. The torrential rain associated with the thunderstorms on the 2nd, some patchy bits here and there and this upcoming rain will make sure that May 2024 won't be an arid month here at least! Signs of a pressure break around the 13th/14th making me wonder if May 2024 will be another wet one to some degree. Of course a persistent high pressure system in the second half could put rest to that idea but already I think it's not impossible for it to happen again.

GFS left, ECM right. Subtle differences but both looking unsettled by early next week with weakenign pressure. GFS would probably be very wet with areas of rain and thunderstorms meanwhile the ECM would be more frontal rainfall. Details of this type are not worth looking at 8 days ahead of time. The GFS has more of a well defined high up into the Barents Sea leading to more of an undercut. The ECM has more of a general area of low pressure that crashes into Scandinavia which we get pulled into. In terms of the ensembles, the pattern differences also show up. The GFS may be hinting at some members taking that undercut and stalling it so don't be surprised if some very warm, humid and thundery runs show up around the 13th-16th time frame. The ECM ensmbles look cooler though with much less of a Scandi high signal and look a bit more blocked. A lot to be resolved but one thing looks clear, it's probably going to turn more unsettled early next week with rain and maybe even some thunder, but whether it's due to a battleground/heat pump scenario, or cooler with low pressure around, it's yet to be solved. No extremes in temperatures either way being shown at the moment but a lack of cold nights and generally mild/warm days mean that it will likely be a period of unexceptionally above temperatures for the forseeable.

I'll make mine a guess (for fun, not because I'm hiding my age!) Here's the Heathrow stats for June, July and August of said year. Not a summer for the record books but a very average summer in many ways. Each month had a heatwave of at least 32C somewhere in the UK, there were some big storms at times such as June 26th, July 3rd/4th and August 9th. A summer I'd be very pleased with as it was a very un-extreme summer.