Sunshine levels 2013

[damianslaw]

Thought I'd start a thread discussing sunshine levels so far this year, given we have now seen the 8th consecutive with not a jot of sunshine, not even a glimpse. Coming on the back of a preety sunless period since the 15th December, I am particularly longing for some sunshine.

Interested to see who else hasn't seen any sunshine yet this year.

Hopefully the change in synoptics from now will bring some welcome sunshine for all, but we may have to wait a little longer as we now exchange cloud and rain for fog lifting into low cloud over the next couple of days, but the weekend should at least offer us some brightness...

What a dark start to 2013.

[Bottesford]

I think much like last winter - we do pretty well here under high pressure up from the south bringing mild air. We've seen a fair few sunny days - last Saturday was mostly clear all day with several days last week getting some sunshine. New Years Day was also very sunny too. Been about 40% sunshine/clear nights 60% cloud which isn't so bad in the UK.

Coupled with the mild air it has felt very nice at times with last Saturday t-shirt weather for walking around town.

Suspect hills to our west dry the air out a bit giving rise to better conditions than for you further west.

However I see a switch in fortunes ahead for us with easterly winds predicted which already the Beeb has us down for 'cold and cloudy' after tomorrow.

[Aaron]

5 hours of sun this month, a world away from the very sunny start to December, when we had 52 hours in the first 16 days. Since then, we've had a grand total of 13 hours of sun.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Aaron

[Harve]

1.04 hours in Buxton. Ouch.

[Terminal Moraine]

6.71 hrs in the first 8 days here; certainly sunnier than Buxton but still only 46% of the expected amount.

[Bottesford]

Best make the most of todays sunshine as it looks like fog & low cloud will prevail after today...

[Backtrack]

Think I've seen roughly 3 minutes of sunshine this year.

It's horrible really, even today it's completely foggy.

[Costa Del Fal]

Weve had it better than others. Sunny today and a few days ago we had some good prolonged bright and sunny spells making it very very mild. All good so far down here.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Sunshine has been pretty variable across the UK during the recent mild settled spell- most regions have been cloudy but there have been exceptions. I remember a couple of days when there was a large hole in the cloud sheet over much of the Midlands and the south and east of Yorkshire, which tallies well with what Bottesford and Blizzards said. However, it's been dull here apart from occasional fleeting glimpses of the sun, and today is set to be the first generally sunny day since New Year's Day.

Edited January 9, 2013 by Thundery wintry showers

[damianslaw]

Another day of gloom with not a glimpse of sunshine - tomorrow looks another cloudy one and Friday which will mean 12 days on the trot with no sunshine..

[Aaron]

Sunshine has been pretty variable across the UK during the recent mild settled spell- most regions have been cloudy but there have been exceptions. I remember a couple of days when there was a large hole in the cloud sheet over much of the Midlands and the south and east of Yorkshire, which tallies well with what Bottesford and Blizzards said. However, it's been dull here apart from occasional fleeting glimpses of the sun, and today is set to be the first generally sunny day since New Year's Day.

Lovely, cold and sunny today.

[Bottesford]

Perfect sunny day here.... If only summer was so sunny as today was it'd be great!

[damianslaw]

We managed a few hours of sunshine today - ending the sun drought.

[Bottesford]

And in contrast thick fog & low cloud start to finish here! Just as expected...

[damianslaw]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread as this January is turning into a very dull one for a number of places. The recent cold weather has been largely accompanied by cloud.

Anyone have the sunshine stats for January.

The rest of the month looks very dull as well especially NW parts.

I can't remember the last time we had a sunny morning.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Philip Eden has England and Wales sunshine for 1st-21st January at 70%.

http://climate-uk.com/

It is highly likely to go down as a very dull January here in the Thirsk/Northallerton area of Yorkshire. The mild anticyclonic spell brought mainly cloudy weather with the holes in the cloud mostly restricted to the south/east of here, and although the cold spell started off with some bright days, there has been hardly any sunshine since last Friday morning. I'll be surprised if my area has exceeded 25 hours of bright sunshine so far this month.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Thundery wintry showers

[reef]

We're on 36 hours so far here this month. The dullest in the period 2001-2012 was 2002 with 44 hours.

It has been a remarkably dull cold spell though, as evidenced by only 5 air frosts and just 3 hours of sunshine in the last 8 days!

[Aaron]

26 hours, a stark contrast from last January, the first very dull winter month since Feb 2011.

[Bottesford]

Very very dull here - especially during this cold spell. The mild spell early in the month recorded was much sunnier (although not wall to wall but def better than this cold spell).

Typical easterly stuff around here - fog & low cloud and uniform temperatures 24 hours a day. If it wasn't for the odd bit of snow this would have been an awfully grim period.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Very very dull here - especially during this cold spell. The mild spell early in the month recorded was much sunnier (although not wall to wall but def better than this cold spell).

Typical easterly stuff around here - fog & low cloud and uniform temperatures 24 hours a day. If it wasn't for the odd bit of snow this would have been an awfully grim period.

I've quite often been thinking your bit in bold recently!

[Summer of 95]

It's rivalling January 1996 for dullness round these parts; yesterday we saw the sun for about half an hour in the afternoon which was the first for around 10 days. A brief clearance overnight saw a drop to -4C, the lowest of this spell, but it was up to -1 and cloudy again at sunrise.

I've been wondering what this spell would have brought had it occurred during the 1997-2007 period; I reckon we would have seen temps of +1 to +3 day and night with rain and sleet, and no lying snow beneath 300m. Since the late 2000s step change its been just cold enough to give and maintain lying snow to low levels, despite the lack of low minima.

[Richard2901]

Abysmal here with 29.6 hours and over a third of that was recorded under south westerlies during the first 3 days of the month.

Just 10.5 hours since the 10th and 0.8 hours in the past week. The dismal cloudy skies have ruined this cold spell preventing frosts occurring most nights. Hopefully February will see a northerly spell but if not then I'd rather not see any further cold.

Last thing I want to see is another easterly spell on top of all the gloom there's been since April. 12-month running sun total down to 1375.2 hours and that includes last years exceptionally sunny March. A real possibility it could drop below 1300 hours by the end of March.

[Stargazer]

If you thought that was bad...we haven't seen any sunshine here at all since the 16th and have had 17 days out of 25 with none at all. Just taken a look at Reading University's site, and if my calculations are correct we've had only 14 hours this month so far. I suspect it'll brighten up enough in the next few days for no records to be broken, but it's certainly exceptionally dull so far.

[summer blizzard]

It's being a pretty dull month here as Aaron has alluded to although the coming week does look a little sunnier than the norm.

[Harve]

Abysmal here with 29.6 hours and over a third of that was recorded under south westerlies during the first 3 days of the month.

Just 10.5 hours since the 10th and 0.8 hours in the past week. The dismal cloudy skies have ruined this cold spell preventing frosts occurring most nights. Hopefully February will see a northerly spell but if not then I'd rather not see any further cold.

Last thing I want to see is another easterly spell on top of all the gloom there's been since April. 12-month running sun total down to 1375.2 hours and that includes last years exceptionally sunny March. A real possibility it could drop below 1300 hours by the end of March.

That would break the record by a considerable margin, although for only since 2003, for the sunniest year ever in Buxton, Derbyshire. Even if March saw no sun at all in Aberdeen then it's possible you still wouldn't drop below our record sunniest (1248 hours), depending on just how sunny that March was.

I've found that compared to the Peak District/Pennines/North-West England, the West of Scotland gets a lot of bad weather but it also gets a lot of good weather, and blue sky never seems to be far away. Not a very scientific description, I admit.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Harve