GRHinPorts

To me it often seems that the years with the hotter Summers are preceded by cold weather in the late Winter or Spring before them. Is this just natures way of averaging out the whole year so that we always (nearly always) end up with an annual CET in the 9.5 - 10.25 range?

This is an easy one for me. I would choose Victoria, British Columbia, Vancouver Island. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria,_British_Columbia#Climate I like living by the coast, and being a gardener I like the "English" climate for temperatures. The only thing I dont like about the UK weather, even down here on the South Coast, is the lack of reliably sunny & dry weather in July and August. Give me that and I think here would be perfect. Thats what Victoria has. Most of the wet stuff comes between November and February when it doesn't matter for outdoor activity and when it produces maximum benefit for storage purposes. If I had to make a very close second choice I would go back to my home town of Perth, Western Australia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth,_Western_Australia In many ways the pattern is the same with all the rain falling in the winter months BUT the maximum temperatures here are about 10-12 C higher all year round. This would make gardening a rather different prospect for me - certainly the "English" style I like would be compromised if not rendered utterly impossible but having grown up there it truly is a magnificent climate in every other way.

Since I have lived in the UK from 1997 there have been 5 previous above average (i.e.17+ on the CET) Julys (1999, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2010). Now 2013 will make a 6th above average July. Yet only once (in 2003) has a good August followed on. As much as we were overdue a good Summer after 6 blank ones, we are massively overdue a good August. But then again there are plenty of Summers where July takes all and 2013 may end up just being a slightly upscale version of 1999 and 2010. I wouldn't write off August just yet though. We can still get real heat right up until about the 20th I would say and so its not until about the 10th-12th if there are no heatwaves in the forecast that I would say Summer is probably over. In other words some 2 weeks after the current outreaches of todays FI. More than enough time for the forthcoming breakdown to work its way through the system and the next stage to declare its hand.

Is +17 very likely now then?

The similarity with 1962 has been commented on elsewhere in the forum too. This year has really tracked the earlier one remarkably closely Although Jan and Fen 1962 were actually both comfortably warmer (at 4.3 & 4.4 respectively) compared to the chilly Jan and Feb (3.2 and 3.5 respectively) of this year. However now looking at July, in 1962 the figure was a likely moan-inducing miserable 15.1, whereas I think July 2013 is now looking likely to deliver something rather better Perhaps this is just a correction from the extra cold Jan & Feb we had to endure this year compared to the former year. So supposing we really are going to track 1962 (and to get this post craftily back onto the topic of Autumns prospects) then we can expect a below average September and November but a bang on average October.

Thanks SLitH for your explanation above. I suspect where I go wrong with where I think the CET should be is that I over estimate the minimums. Plus being in the south I suspect we enjoy on average a small bit of extra warmth that is not representative of the CET region. Perhaps just enough to distort my impression. This isn't just something I find in the Summer either. I remember last December thinking the month had generally been very mild, particularly the second half, and was very surprised the CET was bumbling along in the 4s.

I am forever overscoring the CET as it runs along whatever the time of year but I am really surprised by the scores that both SLitH and BFtheV have quoted. I would have thought the temperatures during the bulk of this forthcoming hot spell would easily run along the lines of 25 Max and 15 Min giving us regular scores in the 20s and bumping the running average well above 17. If the best heatwave in 7 years can only barely scrape us into the 17s (maybe) you can see why it is so difficult to achieve this figure across any month.

To be fair, your original comment that if by late June you haven't seen a warm sunny spell then its most likely Summer will not turn out to be an exceptionally good one ala 2006, 2003, 1995, 1989, 1983, 1976 and 1975 is pretty on the money...but I think this is more to be because such summers are scarce by there very nature rather than any correlation. Even the average to good summers are not that common if we take the fact that since 1900 only 34 Summers in 113 years have delivered a month of 17+ in the CET. So once you start excluding those average to goo Summers where the warm spells started in May and June rather than July and August you really are dealing with a tiny percentage. i.e. years like 1991, and possibly 2013 are going to be pretty rare years.

This! This is what makes the British weather so frustrating. I would quite happily accept everything we have from September - May if we could only have the summers of the NW Pacific. Oh well maybe I should just move to Victoria, BC.

Might be worthwhile pegging the annual running CET figure as of July 3rd since it might be the lowest we see it for some while to come.

The really exciting thing for me this month is can the CET break the magic 17 mark. This has only happened once since July 2006 (that being July 2010). I dont play in the competition but a lot of 17.1s and 17.2s have come in in the last few days so I will be cheering on all these guesses.

1991 would seem to be one example of a summer that took off after June. June that year was a chilling 12.1(!) on the CET which I can only imagine how upset the general public would be if they had to endure that this year. Nevertheless both the following July and August broke the 17 barrier which a quick look through the records is something that only happens on average in about 4 months of every decade. It is perhaps rare for the second half of summer to be massively better than the first half but not completely unheard of.

I have a feeling June 1921 holds the record for most sunshine and probably driest too but having read it somewhere on the net I cant now find a link.

Surely for this reason the highest possible temperatures would be more likely to come in early August rather than late July. There being a sweet spot between the warming of the soil and the shortening of the days and I thought I had read the optimum date was therefore August the 12th.

Several hints in the models now of warmer developments. Given the latter half of April has more potential for warmth that the first half it would seem very possible we could still beat last years fairly low 7.2 but what kind of average would be looking at to get to that point from here?

Do you think those figures could ever be reversed around the other way? Im guessing possibly, but would think the preceding summer/winter season might still have an impact in the final temps...i.e if this current pattern happened in late Sept/Oct it would be warmer than 1.9 and similarly had Sept/Oct 2011 happened now it could not quite reach those dizzying heights.

I remember it well! Was wondering at the time if we were even going to have a winter, and scoffing to myself, at longer term predictions on here suggesting this winter would still be colder than average. That really is a substantial gap between the 2 fortnights - made even more noticeable by the fact that the second period would have maybe 5 or 6 hours more daylight.

As has been mentioned we live in an Oceanic climate at a pretty northerly lattitude so to expect lots of hot warm sunshine any time of the year is going to leave you largely disappointed most years. However if we look at the past 5 years I feel we have had 3 bad summers (2007, 2008 and 2011) and two average summers (2009 - good June/August, terrible July & 2010 - good July, dull August). 09 and 10 were certainly not diabolical but probably were not good enough for most people to cancel out the dross of 07, 08 and 11. The key thing for me though is that all of 07, 08 and 11 delivered amazingly warm (even hot) sunny spells outside of the 3 Summer months. April 2007 and 2011 were seriously above average for most on both sunshine and warmth and around here felt more like July in parts. And the first half of May 2008 was incredibly warm with many days reaching into the up 20s. Late September/early October 2011 was also incredibly sunny and warm. All of these spells came about because high pressure came in from the south and virtually covered the whole of the UK. This is only likely to happen in any given 12 month period perhaps 3 or 4 times a year. It seems to me that synoptic pattern can come at any time too Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall with no regularity about it. If we want good summers we need it to happen in June, July or August. For parts of 2009 and 2010 this arguably did occur but it was almost entirely absent in the summers of 2007, 2008, 2011. We seemingly used up the quota in other months. I would feel the spell we saw in the last 2 weeks of March was clearly one such high pressure synoptical pattern that had it come in Summer would have had everybody putting that summers month into the memorable category. However its a moot point how many more times we will actually see those synoptics replicated again for the rest of 2012. I would actually feel a lot more confident for Summer 2012 if the current cyclonic conditions we are experiencing stuck around for the rest of this month and all of May too but as always the weather will do what the weather will do. If we get one or two high pressure cells in June, July, August I will be happy enough. Im certainly not expecting 2003 and 2006 Summers to be regular events.

July 1999 was a lovely summery month where day after day seemed to bring warm blue skies. The following August brought in some torrential days of heavy rain. There was a run of about 5 summers between 1998 and 2002 inclusive where there was hardly any prolonged summer weather with July 1999 being well and truly a standout exception. If 2011 delivers even 1 month like that July I think most will be pleased.

Crumbs...If its anything like that season I will start building an ark now. By the way does anyone know if prior to Autumn 2000 was 1976 the wettest Autumn of the 20th century and the year itself was not that far below average for rainfuall in spite of the great summer drought? I am persuaded by GP's analysis of this summer and am expecting an above average one but what do I know. I sort of do think there is something in mother nature balancing itself out eventually and so when it does start raining I expect it could be quite a deluge so perhaps "Shades of 76" will extend into the autumn as well.

To be honest down here in the South it virtually feels like Summer anyhow at the moment so if it is going to be a write off later on I'll enjoy it now whatever the calendar says. I am sure there will be quite a few moans later on in we do get a repeat of 2007. There certainly was that Summer but I have lived in this country since March 1997 and only Aug 97, July 99, June and Aug 2003, and June and July 2006 have been better than what we have had this April for warmth, sunshine and remarkably windless weather. So even if the "we'll pay for it later" theory turns out to be correct, who cares? People expecting to have an endless Mediterranean weather pattern are pehaps living in the wrong country me thinks.

I remember this autumn like it was yesterday because I had just gotten into gardening, and was trying to plant various things in absolutely sodden soil. The floods at Portsmouth in that September were actually brought on by blocked drains in addition to torrential downpours by the way. One of my friends had his entire lower appartment flooded out though as a result. One of my memories from that December was reading a cricket report from Adelaide in South Australia where they were mentioning the fact that they had gone 39 consecutive days with drought conditions and the writer had waggishly written: "of course in the UK at the moment they are getting excited if it stops raining for 39 consecutive minutes" Was one of the more notable weather events of the past 14 years here I would say. And the final verdict on this was when a late Spring yielded up some of the most incredible and vivid greenery I have seen on the deciduous trees in the May of 2001.

Is this because of rain now getting into the NW via that big low off the coast of the UK because I was under the impression that the North West had had very little rain all year. Is this June going to be drier than 2006, 2003, 1995 etc as a whole month for your location do you think? Or do you have to go back to 1975/76 to beat this month? As I said earlier I never thought this was going to go down as a notably warm month, but the dryness and (at least down here in the south) the sunshine has been notable. Mind you as I type this we've had a small amount of rain overnight and the skies are slab grey.

The week beginning on Monday the 14th was when we had that mid-Atlantic ridge draped over us bringing a week of very sunny days but cool overnight temps under a N/NW flow. I never really thought therefore this was going to be an exceptionally warm month. I would however be interested to note our final sunshine temps and when was the last June to better these. Also dryness. The last third of June 2006 did have some wet days I seem to remember. So when was the last time we had a drier June? The only wet days Ive observed down here in the south were the 1st, the 10th and some overnight on the 18th.

I'd like 6.3 thanks.