Scorcher

55.8mm here so far so not that wet. It will probably end up above average but not by that much.

Today is definitely warmer than forecast across the CET zone- something to bear in mind. Quite a bit more brightness than expected across much of England.

cheese Agree about the urban sites. Something I've been saying for years as we are an overwhelmingly urban society so we should have more official urban sites to reflect that. Large swathes of the country have very few stations- especially in the west of England. The east does a bit better (south of the Humber) due to the number of former air force bases.

The law of averages (and recent history) suggests we are due a prolonged dry and hopefully sunny period given the incredible duration of this exceptionally wet and dull spell we're experiencing. Interestingly though this month hasn't been exceptionally wet here compared to average with 45.6mm so far. It may end up above average towards the end of the month but perhaps not by much. Sunshine is at 67 hours which is below average with the overall March average being around 100 hours. It's going to end up a dull month but probably won't break any records.

Doesn't look too much of a cool down to me now at all. Tomorrow is looking cooler but with that low looking like setting up to the W/SW of the UK next week we're likely to avoid any real incursion of Arctic air.

reef I did think that myself when looking at that list- some truly shocking summers in that top 10. At least 1990 had that record-breaking heatwave in early August.

CryoraptorA303 It's more common in spring than any other time of year for areas away from the south to be the warmest areas on any given day. The temperature of the North Sea is pretty irrelevant if it's an offshore breeze and coming from the land. Same goes for areas on the western coasts of Merseyside and Lancashire. Places like Crosby and Blackpool can see some surprisingly high temps in spring despite the Irish Sea being cold when the breeze is easterly or southeasterly. Often warmer than places inland.

We're up to 49 hours for the month here now. Below average but not exceptionally so with a third of the month still to come. The problem is we may not add to that figure much over the next few days.

CryoraptorA303 Those higher temps across the Midlands and north are purely due to sunshine. We're at the time of year now where sunshine makes all the difference to temperatures. The North Sea has far less of an influence if the breeze is offshore from the south west or southerly for those places on or close to the east coast.

Daniel* 90s summers weren't uniformly sunny by any means. There were a few dull ones in there- notably 1993 and 1998. I think the trend is more recent for dullness so I'd be surprised if the longer term average is lower than the previous one.

Weather-history Incredibly impressive if accurate. I think June and September stand out as a bit suspect though.

B87 What was your annual total in 2003?

CryoraptorA303 I don't think 2000 hours at Morecambe is impossible. Improbable yes but it is one of the sunnier locations in the north. As we saw in 2018 Morecambe can record extremely sunny streaks over a week or so due to the coastal location. You would need a 2020 style spring followed by a 2003/1995 style summer and then a sunny autumn. I think the main issue in the UK is getting consecutive sunny months and we are always vulnerable to extremely dull winter months that would limit the annual total.

Weather-history They do seem high but over 2000 hours is possible in theory given some places in Scandinavia record those sorts of figures (Stockholm is remarkably sunny given its latitude). Terminal Moraine's figures seem a bit low for all time records. Bognor Regis averages around the 1900 mark so in a sunny year you'd expect 2000 hours to be exceeded easily. The sunniest years must have gone well past that?

Arctic Hare We are certainly close to the bottom of the table. Lima is pretty similar to parts of Western Scotland and Northern Ireland based on that figure. I know there a few cities in China that are also under the 1500 mark. Chongqing is the dullest I believe.

Weather-history There aren't many other heavily populated areas of the world that could possibly record such poor sunshine stats. I certainly can't think of any. There aren't too many densely populated areas globally that average less than 1500 hours annually. Yet we must be well below that for the last 12 months.

So depressing to be back in the gloom this afternoon after a glorious sunny morning. We actually had a much better first week than many areas for sunshine with 33.2 hours. Since then we've only had 3.6 hours in total before today. Is anyone else concerned we could turn into a warmer version of the Faroe Islands? It's really been a remarkably prolonged dull period with no end in sight it seems.

kold weather July 18th 2022 was similar to some other exceptionally hot days in previous years in the south- however further north in England and in North Wales it was easily the hottest day on record for many places before it was smashed again the next day.

Don Yes anything other than above average looks unlikely to me. Can't see where any cold is coming from.

MattStoke Pretty comical. Since that post, we've reached 30C pretty routinely in NW England every summer and have gone well past it a few times. Temps of 32C+ have become much more common.

cheese Bit of a push to call Bramham Park 'in Leeds'. It's only just west of the A1. I know Leeds council has very weird boundaries that encompass a lot of rural areas (and make the population of the city higher than it should be) but I've participated in several Total Warrior events at Bramham Park and it couldn't be much more rural. In some ways it makes that temperature even more impressive though as it's properly out in the countryside. A Face like Thunder Nantwich reached 38.4C I believe on the 19th.

Derecho It's actually fascinating looking back at this thread and seeing the posts from 2013. Lots of people were completely wrong and were dismissing the possibility completely. A few posts even said the Bawtry (South Yorkshire) temperature of 35.6C from 1906 was definitely wrong as it was impossible for it to get that hot so far north- even in mid summer. The UK all-time record is now in Lincolnshire which is almost as far north as Bawtry. 39C+ was reached quite a lot further north than Bawtry as well. Imagine their reaction if we could go back to 2013 and tell the people in this thread about the 2022 spell. They would probably fall over laughing.

Up to 33.2 hours of sun now here. Yesterday started sunny again but unfortunately the gloom arrived around midday and is still here this morning. Cold breeze as well. The Pennines aren't proving much of a barrier to the cloud today but hopefully we will see a few breaks through the day.

Up to 27.8 hours here for the month and another clear sunny morning (although a cool breeze).

East Lancs Rain There is a big difference between where you are and where I am currently near Manchester Airport. My friend who coaches at Burnley confirms this- it is a lot wetter and generally cooler up there than here. I guess comparing East Lancs with West Yorkshire is very different to comparing Cheshire or South Manchester.