Summer 2018 - Moans, Ramps, Chat etc

[weatherguru14]

Its been in the right place for most of the western part of the UK and here In the North west..

[Robbie Garrett]

On 07/05/2018 at 21:23, Sunny76 said:

Yes, it was pitch black for an hour or so. It must have been something unusual. Haven’t seen anything in London as dark as that since.

 

On 08/05/2018 at 00:54, stainesbloke said:

I read somewhere that cloud tops were approaching 60,000 feet that day, as reported by various pilots. 

 

On 08/05/2018 at 12:07, Sunny76 said:

11 miles high? I can’t imagine how scary that must have looked over London.

I work near St Paul’s in central london, and sometimes think about that picture in the newspaper, where the skies are pitch black and St. Paul’s is covered in darkness.

Also reminds me of the Pink Floyd video and A Guide to Armageddon(nuclear war doc on bbc early 80s)

That's pretty rare to get 60,000ft.  The stuff we've had the last few days has been circa 35-37000ft - must have been a pretty good vertical development to go into the stratosphere.  Although I suspect if we keep having pre-longed weather like this we will get a a heavy heat spell and huge storms afterwards.

[cheese]

1 hour ago, weatherguru14 said:

Its been in the right place for most of the western part of the UK and here In the North west..

Leeds has moved to the North West now?

[weatherguru14]

no its in the NORTH EAST..  .. Look up  where Leeds is. it gets considered to be in the North west.. I could get nasty with your constant attacks of me.. But then again  just have another drink and settle down

[Matthew.]

A north of east flow during summer doesn’t bear thinking about here. We’d be stuck mid teens with dull misty days even though it would be a dry summer. That has to be the worse scenario. A flat zonal west of south or north flow would still be pretty dull but warmer but windier. We really need the Azores high nosing in or a south to east south easterly for optimum summer conditions

Edited May 30, 2018 by Matthew.

[cheese]

3 hours ago, weatherguru14 said:

no its in the NORTH EAST..  .. Look up  where Leeds is. it gets considered to be in the North west.. I could get nasty with your constant attacks of me.. But then again  just have another drink and settle down

Uh.. what??? 

[Mokidugway]

Leeds is in the middle ,neither west or east ,pretty insignificant really

[Summer Sun]

Summer outlook from the weather company

Europe Seasonal Outlook: The Weather Company Expects Warm Start to Summer Gives Way To Cooler/Wetter Pattern NW Europe

Quote

 

Relatively Hot and Dry Summer Expected SE Europe

For the aggregate June-August period, The Weather Company, an IBM Business, is forecasting slightly below-normal temperatures for UK and Norway, with above-normal temperatures elsewhere, especially SE Europe. 
 
“After the incredible stratospheric polar vortex split during the late winter, the pattern reversal this spring has been rather striking, with low pressure dominating the pattern in the far North Atlantic,” said Dr. Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist with The Weather Company. “The dominant summer pattern over the past decade has been for higher pressures over the North Atlantic and lower pressures over NW Europe, resulting in cool, wet summers with the hotter and drier pattern across SE Europe.  However, this pattern may not materialize until later in the summer this year, resulting in a nice start to the season across NW Europe.”

For the June-August 2018 period, The Weather Company is forecasting the following temperatures:

June

• Nordic region – Warmer than normal
• U.K. – Warmer than normal
• Northern Mainland – Warmer than normal
• Southern Mainland – Warmer than normal, except Iberia
• Nordic region – Cooler than normal W, warmer than normal E

July

• U.K. – Cooler than normal
• Northern Mainland – Cooler than normal W, warmer than normal E
• Southern Mainland – Warmer than normal 

August

• Nordic region – Cooler than normal
• U.K. – Cooler than normal
• Northern Mainland – Cooler than normal
• Southern Mainland – Warmer than normal

 

1

1

https://business.weather.com/news/seasonal-outlook-the-weather-company-expects-warm-start-to-summer-gives-way-to-cooler-wetter-pattern-nw-europe-1

Edited May 30, 2018 by Summer Sun

[DAVID SNOW]

The much speculated front loaded summer...

[Methuselah]

5 minutes ago, DAVID SNOW said:

The much speculated front loaded summer...

Maybe yes, maybe no. Who knows?

Edited May 30, 2018 by Ed Stone

[weatherguru14]

when we get a good June we often get a good July..  I think all the summer months this year will follow the same pattern  personally.. fairly dry with warm spells.

so over all 2018 will be a good summer.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

6 hours ago, Matthew. said:

A north of east flow during summer doesn’t bear thinking about here. We’d be stuck mid teens with dull misty days even though it would be a dry summer. That has to be the worse scenario. A flat zonal west of south or north flow would still be pretty dull but warmer but windier. We really need the Azores high nosing in or a south to east south easterly for optimum summer conditions

here too, died off now though

[Stozzy]

Another crap day here on the North Yorkshire coast . Endless days of mist/ fog and drizzle . Depressing 

[I remember Atlantic 252]

another horrid morning with E'ly breeze and sea fret, when will it end, enough is enough now

[Sunny76]

On 06/05/2018 at 13:45, B87 said:

Here are the temps and rainfall for the summer months in 1980. Pretty awful.

June: http://www.meteociel.fr/climatologie/villes.php?code=3772&mois=6&annee=1980

July: http://www.meteociel.fr/climatologie/villes.php?code=3772&mois=7&annee=1980

August: http://www.meteociel.fr/climatologie/villes.php?code=3772&mois=8&annee=1980

August was the best month but still poor compared to normal. July looks vomit-inducing, multiple days in the teens?!

Looking at the August stats, and although it was a poor month, the nights appear to be very warm. My guess is, it was a cloudy and humid summer month, similar to 2002. Almost as bad as a cool and cloudy summer month.

[Sunny76]

19 hours ago, Robbie Garrett said:

 

 

That's pretty rare to get 60,000ft.  The stuff we've had the last few days has been circa 35-37000ft - must have been a pretty good vertical development to go into the stratosphere.  Although I suspect if we keep having pre-longed weather like this we will get a a heavy heat spell and huge storms afterwards.

So, is it possible we may see another 1981 type storm this summer? I would love to witness something like that again. 

Hopefully not the first week of August though, as I’m flying to Latvia that week .

[damianslaw]

On 30/05/2018 at 20:43, DAVID SNOW said:

The much speculated front loaded summer...

Mmm parallels with 1992, which delivered one of the warmest Mays on record, very similiar to this month, then a warm decent June, but a poor July and August.. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

On 28/05/2018 at 21:12, damianslaw said:

Its difficult to sustained settled conditions in August much more so than June and July, it was really was a rarity.

Recapping on this post, it may be that it isn't necessarily much harder to sustain settled conditions, but it does seem to be much harder to sustain settled and consistently sunny conditions.   There's a bizarre quirk in the UK's sunshine series from 1910 which shows that only three Augusts averaged over 200 hours of sunshine for the UK as a whole (i.e. 1947, 1995 and 1976) but all three had over 240 hours.  In each case high pressure covering a large majority of the UK was primarily responsible.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/datasets/Sunshine/ranked/UK.txt

In contrast numerous Mays, Junes and Julys averaged over 200 hours of sunshine.  My guess is that it's probably to do with August having weaker solar heating than May, June and July, meaning that low cloud doesn't burn off as readily during the daytime and so there is a stronger requirement for anticyclones to be placed favourably to get reliably sunny weather. 

An extreme case of this was the last week of August 2008, which brought a fairly settled and warm spell but ironically for many it was even cloudier than the wet few weeks that preceded it, due to a moist westerly flow on the northern flank of the high pressure.  A more typical example was the second half of August 2003, which was mostly dry and anticyclonic but sunshine, while above the normal for most, tended to be variable rather than consistent.

As for Summer 2018, I, too, am seeing parallels with 1992, with a lot of the signals suggesting a relatively anticyclonic June and cyclonic August, but this summer is likely to be a somewhat warmer version as the global temperature dropped considerably in 1992 due to the Mount Pinatubo eruption in 1991.

Edited May 31, 2018 by Thundery wintry showers

[cheese]

The days are also shorter in August so the potential to get very high sunshine totals is obviously much lower. If you're comparing, say, June to August then it's better to use percentage of total possible sunshine rather than absolute hours of sunshine, otherwise you're going to get a misleading picture.

For example, at Church Fenton, June is sunnier than August on average using absolute hours, but while June gets around 37% of the total possible sunshine, August gets around 41%, and that's of course because the days in June are much longer. In fact, even September gets a higher sunshine percentage than June at Church Fenton (September gets around 40%).

For eastern parts of the country, summer obviously peaks in July and August, and both months are more or less the same in terms of temperature and sunshine on average. Western areas peak earlier - you often see places like Western Scotland and the Lake District doing quite well in May and June but they rarely do well in July or August even if the rest of the UK is basking in heat. 

Anyway, talk of a front-loaded summer - nothing worse in my opinion than getting a nice June only for the rest of the summer to be bad. Give me a terrible June and a warm Jul+Aug any day (though ideally all 3 would be good!).

Edited June 1, 2018 by cheese

[Summer Sun]

Nice warm start to summer at least it's seasonal for once

 

[Sunny76]

Yes it has been nice and a pleasant May. Probably the best May for at least 3 or 4 years I think, although last year wasn’t too bad in terms of sunny spells. 2016 was chilly at this time though.

Im happy with a warm June, although I would much prefer a good July and August. But, having the hot sunny weather at this time of year is a bonus, with the longest days, so one can’t grumble. 

What we do need though, is a decent dry sunny spell in August, which is something we haven’t seen since 2013, in my neck of the woods.

[Philipsfd]

Would I be right in thinking this Spring has been similar to 2001 and 2008? Both of them had a chilly and damp April but a warm and dry May and didn't 2001 have a cold March? 

 

Would you be happy if this summer is similar to summer 2001? I think June '01 was fairly warm and dry if I remember rightly and the indications are for similar weather now.

[Philipsfd]

1 hour ago, Sunny76 said:

Yes it has been nice and a pleasant May. Probably the best May for at least 3 or 4 years I think, although last year wasn’t too bad in terms of sunny spells. 2016 was chilly at this time though.

Im happy with a warm June, although I would much prefer a good July and August. But, having the hot sunny weather at this time of year is a bonus, with the longest days, so one can’t grumble. 

What we do need though, is a decent dry sunny spell in August, which is something we haven’t seen since 2013, in my neck of the woods.

The heatwave in early June 2016 seems to be overlooked a lot now, perhaps because of the heavy rain that followed. But it was mainly dry, sunny and at times very warm from about the 2nd-9th. We had evening thundery breakdowns on the 4th, 7th and 8th I think.

Edited June 1, 2018 by Philipsfd

[AderynCoch]

Summer's definitely gone up a gear in Bratislava this week. Bar one unsettled week and the odd day here and there the days have been summerlike since early April (March was very cold, so we've basically had no spring this year) but the nights were relatively cool. Now it feels more humid and the sticky nights have begun in earnest. Without this fan I bought I'd be screwed.

[Sunny76]

It’s that time of year again. When we had the heat in late April and early May, we still had the clear chilly nights, and also cool in the shade. It always seems from late May until about mid September, the nights become more humid, and if you’re in London, the subway becomes hot. It also retains the heat until about October.