Thundery wintry showers

You could make an argument for December 2022, as traditionally temperatures get a bit colder on average as we go through December, but the month had a very cold spell until the 18th and then abruptly turned mild and wet. I don't think of November 2010 or the current month (October 2023) as topsy turvy per se, as temperatures followed the normal seasonal progression but with an abrupt switch, but they certainly qualify as switcharound months. The same goes for March 2023 - cold in the first half, dry first week, some snow in the second week, warm and very wet second half. Although not in the same league as April 1981, I reckon April 1995 was a decent example of a topsy turvy month. The first half was the warmest for 50 years, but the second half, while somewhat variable, was slightly cooler than the 1961-90 average, and considerably cooler than the first half. A northerly brought wintry showers and frosts from the 18th-21st.

Yes very heavy rain here as well, I've been watching out for possible electrification given how heavy the rain is, especially a clump over east Lincolnshire, but nothing so far.

I was in Cleadon in South Tyneside in 2007, where the first 10 days of June had persistent low cloud and at times sea fret and came out even duller than the period of wet weather that followed. Eastern Scotland was also heavily affected and, remarkably, in Aberdeen, December 2006 had more sunshine than June 2007. However, in Tyneside while July was wet, sunshine was just slightly below normal and then August was quite sunny and dry. Also there was that exceptional April beforehand. In 2012 we had that phenomenal March, especially the spell late in the month, but then I remember the rest of that spring/summer mostly being a washout and being very dull, apart from a fine spell late May and a spell late July/early August when we had two dry sunny spells sandwiching a spell with sun, showers and thunder. Thus for me, since the turn of the century 2012 just about edges it. 2002 is another candidate for me, though I remember late March and April being warm and sunny which probably just saves it from getting the wooden spoon. Going further back, 1988 sticks out for many parts of England (though not Tyneside, which unusually had more sunshine than London that summer) and 1993 for much of Scotland, as the fine weather of early and late June 1993 struggled to penetrate north of the Scottish border. Perhaps also 1998 in some parts of the country, again especially Scotland, as August 1998 was another north-south split month.

It's a long way off, but I couldn't resist noting how similar the ECMWF operational run's forecast for 8 October 2023 is to the historical chart for 8 October 1995, when temperatures reached the mid-20s widely and got to 23C as far north as Newcastle. The 2023 version is generally a couple of degrees warmer at the 850hPa level.

Having grown up in Cleadon in South Tyneside, I can second the mentions of January and March 1996 - those were the two months that immediately sprung to my mind. It was even duller in that area of the country than in the Hull area. At Durham, January had just 7.6 hours of sunshine and March had just 29.3 hours. At Tynemouth, January only had 5 hours of sunshine, 3 of them on the 28th. In March, some locations had no sun at all from the 11th to 25th inclusive. The dullness of March 1996 particularly stuck out because it lay in a run of sunny Marches from 1993 to 1997 inclusive (at Durham, all of them had at least 126 hours of sunshine). Surprisingly, May 1996 was a fairly sunny month in the Tyne and Wear/Durham area, because, rather like in December 2010, the north-easterly winds of May 1996 brought frequent clear, showery Arctic air masses into the north-east, but in the south-east, where the air masses were more modified, it was often dull. December 2002 also stuck out for me as a very dull easterly month, though in most regions it wasn't quite as dull as January 1996.

I think it's because in a showery westerly regimes and southerly plumes there's a large land mass for storms to develop over as they move west to east, and there's also scope for sea breeze convergence lines to develop inland from the Lincolnshire coast. Also in a north/north-westerly we get convergence lines forming near the coast, especially around the Wolds. Thunder frequency stats from Waddington near Lincoln have pointed to the average annual frequency of thunder-days staying pretty consistent at 14-15 days per year between the 1950s and 2000s. It's been lower than that since around 2010, but probably not beyond the normal bounds of decadal variability between 1950 and 2010. It would certainly appear that continental imports have become somewhat fewer and homegrown storms more prominent, hence the increase in parts of north-east England and the effect of the most thunder-prone regions shifting northwards up the east of England (parts of Kent and Sussex used to average around 20 thunder-days per year, now it's typically less than 15).

Thunder frequency has declined in many parts of the UK, starting in the 1970s/1980s, particularly the south-east. There have been some exceptions to this in the north, e.g. there's been an increase around Newcastle since around 2005, but averaged nationally the trend has been downward. There's been a fair amount of research done on it. Most of the evidence points towards changes in the frequency of synoptic patterns that are favourable for thunderstorms, rather than the warming climate (if anything, all other things being equal, warmer temperatures might be expected to produce more thunderstorms).

Got a direct hit in Lincoln today, I missed the really big storms over south-east Lincolnshire but a more localised cell sprouted up to the west and headed northwards up the west of Lincoln, with frequent lightning and the heaviest rain passed right over my location - it was heavier than anything I remember seeing before. I didn't hear much thunder but that might have been due to the intensity of the rain on the roof.

I'd been thinking about that - I remember a spell in the second half of October 2022 when Lincoln had three thunder-days in the space of a week, and 23 October 2022 was the last of them. As the lightning map shows, most of the lightning was further south, but it did result in quite a spectacular lightning show to the south at around 5pm, and Lincoln had a couple of overhead storms in the previous week. Overall, it was an impressively widespread event for that late in the season.

I have a pretty good view to the north and north-west, none of today's thunderstorms got particularly close to Lincoln but once it got dark there was quite a long lightning show up to the north and north-west from around 8:30 to 11pm as numerous cells sprouted up and took similar tracks. There's a chance of something coming overhead tomorrow, UKV keeps showing a band coming through this area at around 3-4pm although the majority of the activity looks likely to be in the north of England.

There are some similarities, as both years have had frequent settled spells in June with the high pressure often to the north, and a very cyclonic and wet July. But there are also some differences - June 2009, while warmer, sunnier and drier than average for most, was nothing like as exceptional as June 2023 in most parts of the UK, especially for warmth and sunshine. Also, while temperatures and rainfall were comparable in the Julys of 2009 and 2023, and sunshine was comparable in the south-west, July 2009 was considerably sunnier in the north and east. I spent July 2009 in Norwich and July 2023 in Lincoln, and I recall July 2009 being wet but with close to average sunshine, with an emphasis on showers and thunderstorms was maintained for much of the month. There were spells like that in the first half of July 2023 also, but the second half of July 2023 was generally dull and wet here with an emphasis on bands of light or moderate frontal rain moving through. As for comparisons with 1976, again there are similarities between the Junes but June 2023 was marked by consistent heat rather than any outstanding hot spells, in contrast to the extreme heat at the end of June 1976.

I was thinking about the ridge of pressure on the 14th-16th. Yes, the synoptic charts on 18-20 July are consistent with three consecutive settled sunny days in the far south, especially south-east, and I think when I last looked at the UK's sunshine totals, coastal areas of the S and SE managed over 200 hours of sunshine in July 1988 - still rather below the local average, but high enough to support the 18th-20th having been sunny in those regions. I think you can certainly make a case for July 2023 being comparable to July 1988 in at least some regions of the country, especially as the higher temperatures of July 2023 owe a lot to the general global warming trend and also the exceptionally high sea surface temperatures in the North Atlantic. What really sets the two years apart is the respective Junes. Admittedly June 1988 was warm and sunny, and very dry, in most parts of Scotland, but low cloud off the North Sea regularly affected much of England at intervals through the month, whereas in June 2023, which ranked as the UK's warmest and 4th sunniest June, widespread North Sea low cloud was largely limited to the first week of the month.

2010 was also the first instance that sprung to my mind. In June 2010 the solstice itself fell in a transition period between a northerly blast and a spell of generally warm dry sunny weather with occasional thundery outbreaks, but certainly the warm sunny weather was firmly established for most by the 22nd, when it reached 27C in the Norwich area (where I was) and 25C in the Tyne and Wear area. In both 2009 and 2010, 21 December fell right in the middle of a notable cold and, for many, snowy spell. Another that springs to mind is 1995 - that famously hot dry sunny summer kicked off on 21 June, and late December 1995 was generally cold, especially after Christmas, and snowy for some around the 21st and around Christmas. That year is also a double match, for while December 1994 was generally mild and changeable, there was a spell of cold sunny frosty weather in the week leading up to Christmas. I can think of some lesser/more debatable examples. For instance 1999, which had a fine spell around 23-26 June followed by thunder, and both 1998 and (especially) 1999 saw brief cold snaps around 19-21 December. Its rarity is dependent on how widely one defines "seasonal" but I think it's hard to argue with 1995 or 2010.

I'm not aware of July 1988 having three consecutive settled, sunny days at any point in the month. There was indeed a ridge of high pressure that moved across the west and south around midmonth, but it was weak to my knowledge much of the country remained cloudy and rather cool for the most part, and rain-bearing fronts were never far away. Admittedly, some north-eastern coastal areas managed near average sunshine that month, but that was down to some sunny but very windy days towards the end of the month when they were sheltered from the west/south-westerlies by the Pennines or the Scottish Highlands, and they were very much the exception rather than the rule. If I take Heathrow for example, July 2023 used a Kipp-Zonen sunshine sensor, which normally records about 10% less sunshine than the Campbell-Stokes sensor that was used in July 1988, and the implication is that 1988 was probably a bit duller.

In response to the original question, the two years that stick out for me are 1912 and 1954. 1912 did have a dry sunny April, but the summer was even more extreme than 1954, especially for lack of sunshine. In recent years, probably 2012, as the warm sunny weather was confined to March, a spell in late May, and to a lesser extent early August. I remember quite enjoying the first half of August 2012, but the second half of August went back into the dull wet rut that characterised the rest of that summer. In some parts of the country (e.g. Leeming in North Yorkshire), March 2012 was the sunniest month of the year. Like Reef I tend to discount 2023 as a contender because of the way June went. In the months with greatest warmth and daylight (May to August), we didn't have a month remotely like that in 1912, 1954 or 2012.

Just heard a rumble of thunder to the south of Lincoln. I initially wasn't sure if it was thunder or not, but the Met Office ATD system confirms that there was a strike nearby.

Yes, quite a substantial thunderstorm here in west Lincoln with a bit of hail as well. Recent thunderstorms have tended to skirt around Lincoln and produce distant rumbles, but this one has come right overhead, so in many ways it's been more spectacular than the earlier ones that were more widespread.

Looks like that's the end - the cell that produced a few rumbles over Newark fizzled as it approached Lincoln and produced a light shower, and another, much heavier, shower on its southern flank narrowly missed me to the east and wasn't electrified. It's been a frustrating few days of storm watching, being a bit too far north on my birthday (22nd) and then being a bit too far south today, but I have captured some good cloud formations on the two days.

Only one sferic from the cell approaching Lincoln from the SSW so far, but it's looking pretty impressive on the latest radar.

I'm interested in that big cell that has appeared just south of Leicester, that's the southernmost cell that I've seen go up in the vicinity of the east Midlands region for some time.

Some convection going up again to the west of Lincoln, probably won't come to much but with the front nearing from the west there's still a chance of something significant sprouting up I reckon.

One rogue cell went up to the west of Lincoln but it has subsided and didn't become electrified. Most of the lightning activity is currently in NE England and the east of Ireland.

2003 just about edges it as my favourite year of the 2000s mainly because of how consistently sunny it was. There were also some marked temperature contrasts in January, and in eastern England there were also some notable thunderstorms from May to August. I also have some fond memories of 2001 (mainly for the snowy weather early and late in the year, and a warm sunny May), 2005, and as others have mentioned 2006 and 2009. I wouldn't put 2006 top mainly because I remember the autumn and December being very consistently warm with not a lot happening where I was, although the frequency of thunder was unusually high in parts of the south-west during that period. The standout month of 2006 would have to be that July, it was like being on the Continent for a month and many places had record temperatures and over 300 hours of sunshine. I remember things got a bit heated regarding July 2009, as for some (especially towards the south-west) the month was a washout, but in Norwich (where I was) it was quite warm and sunny and although it was wet, most of the rain came from short-lived showers and thunderstorms. July 2009 had 7 days with thunder at both Norwich and Cleadon in Tyne and Wear, and 8 thunder-days at Waddington near Lincoln (where I currently am). I remember spring and autumn 2009 being quite boring though, though with a lot of pleasant warm sunny weather around mid-March in particular. I also have quite fond memories of February, June and December 2009. Least favourite year of the 2000s? It has to be 2002. Apart from a bright frosty New Year and some fine sunny weather at the end of March and during April, not much really sticks out during what was a rather forgettable year.

Lincoln is on the eastern edge of the thunderstorm potential today, but especially as it's my birthday I'll be keeping a close eye on it, also have the day off work today.

It's probably the luck of the draw more than anything specific to Lincoln I reckon - when thundery activity is well-scattered or isolated, as is often the case in Britain, the odds will tend to favour missing out most of the time. I remember that in May and July 2021 Lincoln seemed to get a thunderstorm almost every time thundery activity was forecast around Lincolnshire - I guess you win some and you lose some.