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August 2008: horrific


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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam
 

Coming up to 10 years since this absolute awful summer month. The worst feature of this month was the lack of sunshine, for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as a whole, it was duller than February of the same year.  February 2018 was exceptionally sunny granted but August was so dull it was the 9th sunniest month of the year!

February, March, April, September and October were all sunnier than August 2008.

For northern Scotland, it wasn't as bad as the rest of the country, sunshine wise. 

Some of the sunshine figures are shocking for a summer month

Hampstead: 97hrs

Wittering: 116hrs

Ross-on-Wye: 126hrs

St Mawgan: 118hrs

Edgbaston: 101hrs

Valley: 86hrs

Woodford: 79hrs

Boulmer: 72hrs

Eskdalemuir: 41hrs

Aldergrove: 61hrs

For parts of Scotland Northern Ireland, to add to the extreme dullness, it was also exceptionally wet. 

NOAA_1_2008081906_1.png

 

The cloud amounts meant that maxima were suppressed but minima held up. The highest maximum recorded in the UK for the month was  27.5C on the 6th at Faversham

For me, it was a month to forget!

 
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Posted
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)
  • Weather Preferences: Winter: cold and snowy. Summer: hot and sunny
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)

Yep, remember August 2008 being cool and cloudy. 

The warmest day of the month I can see back in the records for London was 27c on the 30th. The average max for the month was about 21.5c which is a good 3c below average.

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Posted
  • Location: Nymburk, Czech Republic and Staines, UK
  • Weather Preferences: Sunny and warm in summer, thunderstorms, snow, fog, frost, squall lines
  • Location: Nymburk, Czech Republic and Staines, UK

Hideous ‘summer’ month, nearly as bad as June 2012. 

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Posted
  • Location: Valencia, Spain or Angmering, West Sussex
  • Weather Preferences: 22-38C in summer with storms, cold in winter with some snow/or 15-25C
  • Location: Valencia, Spain or Angmering, West Sussex

Its funny to see all of these threads popping up in a midst of a classic summer, but in my view August 2008 was even worse than June 2012, simply because at least June 2012 was interesting for the high amount of rainfall. August 2008 was just boring, I remember Street Viewing Australia just so I could see the sun haha.

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Posted
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl

The summers of 2007-2011 have begun to blur into a bit of a haze for me, mainly because they delivered often wet cool and cloudy weather. Remember summer 2008 delivering hardly any sustained sunny warm dry weather - and the August being one of the worse months of said period, perhaps not as wet as June, July and Aug 2007, but a bit cooler I think. May 2008 was the best month of 2008 for sunny warm dry weather.

After three poor summers ending on 08, 1978, 1988 and 2008 its good that we are seeing a good one this decade, just like 100 years - 1918 being one of the best summers of the last century.

 

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Posted
  • Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
  • Location: Bratislava, Slovakia

August 2008 is often the first month to crop up when talking about the summers of 2007-12 but even worse for me was July 2010. The sunshine totals in western parts were comparable to (and in some cases lower than) August 2008 - some achievement when you consider that July is a whole month closer to the summer solstice than August. At Valentia July was the second dullest month of 2010 (84 hours), only just edging out November (80 hours)

Add to that a complete washout in western areas and the worst NW/SE split I've ever seen (it went on for weeks) and you have a truly rotten month.

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Posted
  • Location: Perth, Scotland
  • Location: Perth, Scotland

Remember August 2008 very well, we took a weeks holiday up in Dornoch up in the far north of Scotland at the start of the month and the weather was generally rather sunny and dry, then we came down to Perth and the park at the back of our house which had the burn running through it was completely flooded almost knee deep. It certainly was an abysmal summer month, it wasn’t as cool as 2007, but it was the wettest since 2004 and dullest on record and still is to date. I can remember a maximum of only 12.4.C on the 12th as well.

Mean maximum: 18.2.C (-1.3.C)

Mean minimum: 11.2.C (+0.4.C)

Mean: 14.7.C (-0.5.C)

Rainfall: 145mm (205%)

Sunshine: 80 hours (51%)

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Posted
  • Location: halifax 125m
  • Weather Preferences: extremes the unusual and interesting facts
  • Location: halifax 125m

A shocker,especially when I was hoping for at least a little bit of summer to follow the poor june and july.The only August I can think that was worse was 1986 maybe had a little more sunshine but was much cooler.

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Posted
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)
  • Weather Preferences: Winter: cold and snowy. Summer: hot and sunny
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)
20 hours ago, damianslaw said:

The summers of 2007-2011 have begun to blur into a bit of a haze for me, mainly because they delivered often wet cool and cloudy weather. Remember summer 2008 delivering hardly any sustained sunny warm dry weather - and the August being one of the worse months of said period, perhaps not as wet as June, July and Aug 2007, but a bit cooler I think. May 2008 was the best month of 2008 for sunny warm dry weather.

After three poor summers ending on 08, 1978, 1988 and 2008 its good that we are seeing a good one this decade, just like 100 years - 1918 being one of the best summers of the last century.

 

1998 was pretty poor too. 

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Posted
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)
  • Weather Preferences: Winter: cold and snowy. Summer: hot and sunny
  • Location: Home: Chingford, London (NE). Work: London (C)
16 hours ago, AderynCoch said:

August 2008 is often the first month to crop up when talking about the summers of 2007-12 but even worse for me was July 2010. The sunshine totals in western parts were comparable to (and in some cases lower than) August 2008 - some achievement when you consider that July is a whole month closer to the summer solstice than August. At Valentia July was the second dullest month of 2010 (84 hours), only just edging out November (80 hours)

Add to that a complete washout in western areas and the worst NW/SE split I've ever seen (it went on for weeks) and you have a truly rotten month.

Agree about 2010. Being on the other side of the NW/SE split to you we had a cracking spell of weather during the last 1/3rd of June and first 1/3rd of July that year. 

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Posted
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire
  • Location: Ossett, West Yorkshire

August 2008 was one of the scenarios that shows that persistent dullness in a summer month is of no guarantee of cooler conditions - in fact for such a dull August, the CET was still 16.2, which is close to average or even a shade above.  Given the overall general weather pattern, logic suggests that the month should have been cooler but it wasn't.  August 2008 was a bit of a similar scenario to August 2004, which was warm overall with a CET of 17.6, but also a very wet month, and shows that a high CET in a summer month is no guarantee that it will not be a washout.

Edited by North-Easterly Blast
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Posted
  • Location: Shrewsbury
  • Location: Shrewsbury

Ah, August 2008- most of that month I was working nights and had no trouble sleeping in the mornings, because there was no more sunlight than at night. Add persistent drizzly rain and constant 16-19C temps round the clock.

July 2010 was appalling too- even duller than Aug 2008, not as rainy which in some ways made it worse as it was hard to understand why the cloud just wouldn't clear. The telling stat about summer 2010 here was that June had more sunshine than July and August. Combined.

 

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Posted
  • Location: Powys Mid Wales borders.
  • Location: Powys Mid Wales borders.

July 2010 did give a settled few days near the end,the only redeeming feature for that month.

As for august 2008 it was certainly the dullest on record and a month totally useless for haymaking.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
  • Location: Dublin, Ireland
  • Weather Preferences: Cold, snowy winters and warm, sunny summers
  • Location: Dublin, Ireland

I quite liked August 2008 because I love extreme rainfall and that's pretty much what the month delivered. After the thunderstorm on the 9th August 2008 in Dublin (which became the wettest August day on record, now 2nd as of 2014), these were the scenes:

I hated August 2011 a lot more because it had no extreme rainfall and it was cold/dull.

6279109987_76d990450f_b.thumb.jpg.3cf22e8539e2c694ca40ff67a3128fe6.jpg6279630302_6268b23a1c_b.thumb.jpg.ad03e5a58ec2e47783a9a01892db0b02.jpg6279630798_2d0c1a6495_b.thumb.jpg.52a03f05365153d5fb54446dfc6a4ff7.jpg1806249853_6279630940_c9ba3357a0_b(1).thumb.jpg.742050cd469674bff500b9395f8f3380.jpg

Edited by BruenSryan
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Posted
  • Location: Perth, Scotland
  • Location: Perth, Scotland
On 17/08/2018 at 14:05, BruenSryan said:

I quite liked August 2008 because I love extreme rainfall and that's pretty much what the month delivered. After the thunderstorm on the 9th August 2008 in Dublin (which became the wettest August day on record, now 2nd as of 2014), these were the scenes:

I hated August 2011 a lot more because it had no extreme rainfall and it was cold/dull.

6279109987_76d990450f_b.thumb.jpg.3cf22e8539e2c694ca40ff67a3128fe6.jpg6279630302_6268b23a1c_b.thumb.jpg.ad03e5a58ec2e47783a9a01892db0b02.jpg6279630798_2d0c1a6495_b.thumb.jpg.52a03f05365153d5fb54446dfc6a4ff7.jpg1806249853_6279630940_c9ba3357a0_b(1).thumb.jpg.742050cd469674bff500b9395f8f3380.jpg

Have to agree August 2011 was abysmal being very cool and wet, although there was a few nice days at the start and some cracking thunderstorms midmonth. Summer 2011 was definitely the worst summer for warm, sunny days 

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Posted
  • Location: Sheffield
  • Weather Preferences: Thunderstorms
  • Location: Sheffield

Yeah what a useless month that was, I remember the comical failed "heatwave" at the end with 16°C+ 850hpa temps which translated to 20°C maxes under heavy overcast every day.

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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

I spent August 2008 in Norwich and the first third of the month had a mix of dry cloudy days and brighter days with showers and sometimes thunder.  There were some decent thunderstorms about, and I remember two days in a row with thunder (probably the 6th and 7th) and on the second of those days there were three separate storm cells and I watched one flashing away just to the west late in the evening.  However, the middle third of the month was mostly dull with rain at times, and the dry warm last week somehow contrived to be even duller still, despite Norwich traditionally being in a good spot to see holes develop in the cloud sheet in even the cloudiest of summertime westerly flows.  It did, if I remember rightly, finally brighten up late on the 31st as the wind backed southerly.

According to the records from my weather station in Cleadon in Tyne and Wear that month, the month was pretty grey all the way through, with thunder on the first two days but otherwise a lot of emphasis on frontal rain, and again the dry warm last week was almost relentlessly cloudy.

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Posted
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine and 15-25c
  • Location: Edmonton Alberta(via Chelmsford, Exeter & Calgary)

i don't remember Aug 2008 as being bad at all...June and July 2007 were worse

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  • 1 year later...
Posted
  • Location: Pendle, East Lancashire, North West England
  • Weather Preferences: Not too hot, not too cold
  • Location: Pendle, East Lancashire, North West England

 The month was extremely cloudy and quite wet with below average daytime temperatures being offset by above average nighttime temperatures.  I remember going on holiday to the Isle of Wight for a week in that month and the weather was mainly cloudy but dry.  Basically just a cool and cloudy month. Quite boring, similar to August 2018 which is also a very cloudy month here, but also quite dry, but not as bad as August 2012 or August 2017,  those were pretty terrible months here. 

Edited by East Lancs Rain
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Posted
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset
  • Weather Preferences: Continental winters & summers.
  • Location: Cleeve, North Somerset

There's no comparison between August 2018 and August 2008 here. August 2018 was a summer month (albeit an increasingly poor one as the month went on after the hot first week), where 2008 was just awful throughout, with only a few warm days at the very end. It led on to an even wetter September.

It was actually the first poor August from an active Atlantic that I remember clearly. Previous poor Augusts were not necessarily Atlantically active.

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Posted
  • Location: Pendle, East Lancashire, North West England
  • Weather Preferences: Not too hot, not too cold
  • Location: Pendle, East Lancashire, North West England

August 2011 was also a very cloudy month here similar to 2008 and 2018.  But August usually is a cloudy and wet month, especially here in the north west. 

Edited by East Lancs Rain
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Posted
  • Location: Irlam
  • Location: Irlam

August 2008 is one of those months, you can't take the CET mean at face value. The maxima for that month were surpressed, it was the coolest August since 1993 based on maxima but the higher minima makes the month look warmer than it actually was. For summer months, maxima are far more important/significant. 

 

 

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