Summer 2016: Reviews & Stats

[Nick L]

Now that meteorological summer 2016 has ended, here is a thread to discuss your views, ratings and statistics for the season as a whole  

[Matthew.]

A good August! It felt much more like summer should be. Looking forward to seeing the met office results but sunshine must have been at least average, coupled with warm temperatures with average rain here with a few days seeing heavy rain.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

not a bad Summer, but generally too far north and west here, a few vile days, 10th Aug I remember feeling cold, never mind chilly, even though I rate Aug as the best summer month, hopefully Sept can better it? but here the 3rd is looking foul!

[Guest]

Rubbish summer. Only the end of August was nice, the rest was cloud and rain. Just like last year, shame.

[NorthYorksWeather]

A summer that seemed to gradually improve with time, as a whole it came in 0.2c below the 81-10 average. 

[Milhouse]

A slow burner of a Summer this year starting off in worrying fashion with copious amounts of rainfall. But from mid July onwards it really did improve with some nice hot days thrown in for good measure. I'd stop short of saying I'd welcome a repeat of Summer 2016 as I did get tired of the constant downpours in June but the temperature stats for the season as a whole are quite decent. Now for a warm dry September before autumn proper.

[cheeky_monkey]

June was poor..July was dry and warm..August was good sunny and warm here..summer 2016 was like summer 2015 but in reverse.

[mb018538]

Slowly improving is how I'd quickly sum up the season. June was pretty dire with a lot of easterly winds and muck, though July and August weren't bad at all, and notably dry down this way. From mid July onwards it's been quite warm. August came in at 17c in the CET series (warmest since 2004), so that shows you that this summer at least comes out with a bit of credit. Most of the other August months since 2004 have been so wet and unsettled it was nice to get a change. Sods law I was in the USA for the hottest day of the year, but there we go. The first half of September looks like carrying on where August left off too, so I'd give it a 7/10 as a whole.

[Stargazer]

In recent years there seems to have been a tendency for summers to start fairly well then go downhill, with last year being typical and 2014 consisting of a decent June and July followed by a dire August. This year was very much the reverse, with a rather wet and exceptionally dull June (we had none of the sunny weather in the first few days that much of the country experienced) followed by a very dry July and a pretty good August all round. On the whole an improvement over last year - I'd say summer 2016 has come in slightly better than average overall after a mediocre 2015. Overall I'd give this summer 7/10, roughly on a par with 2014.

In terms of quick stats, 2016 has given us the driest July/August for a few years, and 20 July was the warmest night here by far in 14 years of records with a minimum of 21.7C.  Reading University's website http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/weatherdata/Reading_monthly_summaries.html shows an average maximum for the season of 21.8 (+0.3), minimum 12.6 (+0.7), rainfall 102mm (71% of average), sunshine 537 hours (93%), so slightly warmer and duller than average and very dry.  When I have time I'll try to compile some temperature stats for this site - in general it's around 0.5C warmer than the university here..

Edited September 7, 2016 by Stargazer

[Frost HoIIow]

Been an uneventful Summer up here. A warm sunny start in early June which is typical for NW England and Scotland. Bar one hot day July was rather cool and wet at times, August was neither here nor there, A handful of warm days but quite a lot of cool days too. It would seem further east and south have had a better Summer. But that's not entirely unusual. Overall nothing remarkable here in the Oldham area. Not a Summer that will stick in the memory.. Should note it has been very poor for any thunder storms.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Frost HoIIow

[B87]

June was a terrible month, with highs below average, and lows above average due to the record cloud. It was also a very wet month.

July was fairly average; slightly above normal temps and slightly below normal sun hours, quite dry too.

August was a warm and dry month with average sun hours.

Summer overall here was 0.6c above average, with average rainfall and well below average sunshine (it was the 5th cloudiest on record at Heathrow).

Individual month ratings..

June: 2/10, July: 5/10, August 7/10.

Summer 2016: 4.7/10 (take away June and that goes up to 6/10).

Edited September 7, 2016 by B87

[damianslaw]

Very uneventful overall with little to remember.. better than last year overall in terms of warmth and dryness, but sunshine levels were very average. It started off very promising with an excellent spell of weather here in early June, but went downhill mid month, and then picked up in fits and starts from mid July finishing on a very good note. July was rather dissapointing it has to be said, but August was probably the best since 2005 (not saying much recent Augusts have been very poor in the main). Not as good as 2013 or 2014, but slightly better than 2009, 2010 and 2011, much better than 2007, 2008 and 2012. 

Thankfully we have been spared any summer deluges, the rain was often quite light or moderate and never particularly troublesome. Its been an excellent growing season this year, ideal conditions, consistently warm, damp with good sunny spells on occasion but not enough to scorch the earth. Gardeners have had there work cut out.

Hoping next summer can deliver a good latter part to June and early July - the best time for summer conditions, by late August its all rather too late.

 

[weatherguru14]

Thought it was a decent summer!  from recollection  we had  2 and half weeks of good weather in June.. Second half of July was good and  August was the best month and warmth has remained so far into September.. way better than last year for warm weather..

[Evening thunder]

June was quite poor though I wasn't here for the first 3 weeks. Much of the rain was from heavy downpours mid month including a thunderstorm on the 16th (there's a novelty for the rest of summer).

July very dry, temps average or a touch above, slightly dull still. Highest temp 27.1C on the 19th, though cooler than many due to the onshore wind.

August was the best month, lots of warm days, the most sunshine, and quite dry though a couple wet days. However we were just west of the heat again and it failed to reach 25C! despite 30C in east Dorset. The average maxima was 22.1C but the highest only 24.7C.
We are near the coast but 25C shouldn't be that hard... and easy with a high overhead or surface flow from e.g. the east during a very warm/hot spell. We haven't reached 26C in August since at least 2007 which is unusual. Aberdeen hit 26C in September the other day..

August 2012 had a higher maxima and 2012 overall had 2 higher maxima than this year, and 5 days above 25C compared to only 2 this year.

There also wasn't much other weather of interest while I was here this summer (like last summer), barely a cumulonimbus to be seen let alone a thunderstorm..

Overall, I would give the summer a rating of 6.5-7/10 for the general public so decent enough.. behind 2013 and 2014, but ahead of most or all others from 2007 onwards.

However for the above reasons my own personal satisfaction rating is probably 5 to 5.5/10, so average at best.

Edited September 9, 2016 by Evening thunder

[Weather-history]

NOAA NAO data says that there have been only 4 summer months in the last 10 years with a nett +ve NAO: June, July, August 2013 and July 2014.

[cheese]

On 9/7/2016 at 20:44, damianslaw said:

Very uneventful overall with little to remember.. better than last year overall in terms of warmth and dryness, but sunshine levels were very average. It started off very promising with an excellent spell of weather here in early June, but went downhill mid month, and then picked up in fits and starts from mid July finishing on a very good note. July was rather dissapointing it has to be said, but August was probably the best since 2005 (not saying much recent Augusts have been very poor in the main). Not as good as 2013 or 2014, but slightly better than 2009, 2010 and 2011, much better than 2007, 2008 and 2012. 

Thankfully we have been spared any summer deluges, the rain was often quite light or moderate and never particularly troublesome. Its been an excellent growing season this year, ideal conditions, consistently warm, damp with good sunny spells on occasion but not enough to scorch the earth. Gardeners have had there work cut out.

Hoping next summer can deliver a good latter part to June and early July - the best time for summer conditions, by late August its all rather too late.

 

It's never 'too late' IMO - and it certainly isn't September's fault that it's more likely to deliver settled weather as opposed to June with its cursed 'return of the Westerlies'. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

Quite a boring summer in Exeter.  There was only one thunder-day (16th June) and few in the way of bright showery convective days apart from a spell around mid-June.  Exeter isn't the greatest location in the UK for thunderstorms, but to have only one thunder-day in the whole summer is unusual, and contrasted with the thundery year in 2014.  For comparison, the summer of 2015 had 3 thunder-days.

June didn't actually seem as bad to me as the statistics suggested, there were certainly quite a few warm sunny days early in the month, although also several dull but dry days.  The second half was often cloudy and wet, however. 

July was the kind of summer month where my personal rating falls short of that of the general public.  It was quite warm and very dry, with about 10mm of rain, and yet sunshine was below normal.  Those surprising stats reflect the high frequency of cloudy, stable westerly regimes on the northern edge of the ridging Azores High.  I always thought the South West was the region of the UK where the dry-sunny relationship tended to hold the most strongly, but not this time.

But the dry-sunny relationship did hold up pretty well during August.  This was easily the sunniest month of the summer, and although rainfall wasn't far from average, a lot of that fell on the 1st.  In general a lot of pleasant weather but nothing notable and nothing over 24C, the region living up to its name of housing the English Riviera.

This summer, to my mind, showed broad similarities with Summer 1998, which in the south also had a dull wet June, a dry but cloudy July, and a dry sunny August.  It has been rather warmer though in all three months.

Overall my rating is straight down the middle.  June 4/10, July 5/10, August 7/10, overall approx. 5.3/10

Edited September 17, 2016 by Thundery wintry showers