Summer 2020 - Moans, Ramps & Chat

[BruenSryan]

1 hour ago, East Lancs Rain said:

I know I might be in the minority here, but I would love it if just for once we had a summer where no where managed to reach 30°C in the UK. Can't remember when that last happened. Every summer we get at least 2-3 heatwaves these days.

1993. 2007 and 2008 were close but just about reached the magic 30.0.

[Daniel*]

34 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

Trouble with Heathrow its in London..not like most airports in the UK that are generally a few miles away from a city..its is built up to the north south and east and is bounded to the west by the M25 and M4 motorways..you cant compare it to Gatwick or Stansted that are long way out of London

Hm it’s not in middle of London far from worst effects of London UHI it has its own, lots of countryside quite close. It’s an island of concrete.

[summer blizzard]

8 hours ago, Azazel said:

Was it summer 2016 or 17 that ended in July? I remember a stormy evening in July and summer never recovered and Autumn started in earnest. Wonder if it’ll be the same story this year but even earlier to punish us for the glorious spring.

It was 2017. 

A westerly wind burst in the East Pacific during early June had generated a ~2 week high pressure spell in our locale shortly after however once we got to July the Nina synced with the atmosphere, we got some monster trade winds near the dateline and summer went AWOL afterwards. It was wonderful. 

[summer blizzard]

28 minutes ago, BruenSryan said:

1993. 2007 and 2008 were close but just about reached the magic 30.0.

I think 1993 did fail to achieve 30C. 2007 made it in late August.

[B87]

57 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

Trouble with Heathrow its in London..not like most airports in the UK that are generally a few miles away from a city..its is built up to the north south and east and is bounded to the west by the M25 and M4 motorways..you cant compare it to Gatwick or Stansted that are long way out of London

It's further from the city than CDG is from the centre of Paris. Plenty of major cities with airports in them (Tokyo, Paris, Chicago, Sydney to name a few).

Heathrow only has houses on one side (the eastern side). Fields and reservoirs to the west, low density warehouses and mostly fields to the north and south.

Kew Gardens has warmer average highs year round, though it has a bit of a frost hollow effect, so night time lows there are comparable to Wisley, which has quite cool nights due to the sandy soil.

Edited June 24, 2020 by B87

[cheeky_monkey]

2 hours ago, B87 said:

It's further from the city than CDG is from the centre of Paris. Plenty of major cities with airports in them (Tokyo, Paris, Chicago, Sydney to name a few).

Heathrow only has houses on one side (the eastern side). Fields and reservoirs to the west, low density warehouses and mostly fields to the north and south.

Kew Gardens has warmer average highs year round, though it has a bit of a frost hollow effect, so night time lows there are comparable to Wisley, which has quite cool nights due to the sandy soil.

im talking about the UK and particular to the other London airports as mentioned

as you can see from the bigger picture out in the country it is not ..it is inside the London conurbation 

[mathematician]

5 hours ago, East Lancs Rain said:

I know I might be in the minority here, but I would love it if just for once we had a summer where no where managed to reach 30°C in the UK. Can't remember when that last happened. Every summer we get at least 2-3 heatwaves these days.

I don't think you are in the minority. I am absolutely with you on this.

[NeilN]

1 hour ago, mathematician said:

I don't think you are in the minority. I am absolutely with you on this.

I'm also the same too - I did predict this summer not to deliver, but that prediction has been filed into the dustbin now. However...I'm getting serious 2007-2009 vibes with the models. 

[Yarrum]

26.8c here today, June record is 27.4

If it wasn’t for this easterly coastal breeze tomorrow, I could definitely see that figure being surpassed!

[Cheshire Freeze]

Awful day today. Was like a sauna at work with no aircon. Thoroughly miserable and drained. Just got in and still dripping with sweat.

[emmett garland]

Awful day today cloudy for most of the day and a bit of sun this evening . CAN only dream of weather like yours over the irish sea. Had to wear trousers too and I work outdoors landscaping didnt break a sweat . I  wore shorts back in march when we seem to get our hottest sunniest days.I hate these days when its 33 degrees a couple of hundred miles away and we are stuck at 16 degrees and very very dark gloomy november skies I honestly prefer sunny Autumn Spring days its our best chance of decent weather. Rant over.

Edited June 24, 2020 by emmett garland

[Mapantz]

28.9°C was my max today. It coincided with low humidity too, just 38%.

I'm glad I have good cooling on my gaming rig as the ambient room temp has really bumped up the cpu/gfx card temps. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

This seems to be a facet of our changing climate - in the 1970s and 1980s, it took exceptional synoptics like those of late June 1976 to get temperatures approaching the mid-30s Celsius, and most heatwaves had temperatures predominantly in the mid to high 20s, whereas these days it doesn't seem to take anywhere near as much to get temperatures into the 30s.  Climate change projections do quite widely have our heatwaves hotting up at a faster rate than the rise in mean temperature.  I think that for this reason it's unlikely that we'll see another summer that fails to hit 30C.  

Note that 1993, despite its reputation, wasn't a consistently cool summer, there were some hot spells in early and late June in particular but none of them were hot enough to hit 30C.  I remember that incursion of unusually hazy continental air around 9 June 1993 which was followed by thunderstorms for some.

One of the big attractions of heatwaves has historically been their rarity - like many weather enthusiasts it would seem, I have a history of being excited by extreme temperatures and looking forward to heatwaves just to get the opportunity to experience unusually high temperatures, but as the climate warms these temperatures are becoming less unusual.

The highest hourly readings were 27.2C at Exeter Airport today so it probably got to near 28C at some point, which I normally find fine, but today the humidity was rather higher than we have had in many recent spells with those sort of temperatures (e.g. late June/early July 2018), and it is currently a sweltering 28C in my living room.  But to my mind it will be well worth it if I get a good display of lightning at around midnight on 25/26 June, as is still being shown on the GFS at just T+24.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Thundery wintry showers

[Nick L]

Had a lovely breeze last night which managed to get rid of all the accumulated warmth of the day, and made sleeping pleasant.

But it's hot today, jeez.

[Nick L]

Regarding Heathrow...I think the biggest issue is that the weather station is sandwiched on a small area of grass between the north runway (one of the busiest runways in the world) and the northern perimeter roads and car parks. So it's between two large slabs of black tarmac. In addition, being in the northern side of the airport means that in any hot southerly, it's just advecting all of the heat from the airport towards the weather station. Anyone who has been to Heathrow will know that it's basically the size of a town in itself.

I think if you moved it to a patch of grass in the southwest corner of the airport you'd see some decrease in the summer maxima.

[Paul_1978]

1 hour ago, mountain shadow said:

Absolute horrendous ECM 0z. Northerly blocking, lows parked near or over us. No sign of anything remotely Summer like in the next ten days.

 

But not horrendous if you don't like hot weather . 

As a severe hayfever sufferer, this is not bad news for now. But once the grass pollen season is over (end of July), I would welcome warm (but not hot) sunny weather with open arms. 

The model output right now is not bad in my eyes 

[markyo]

20 minutes ago, Paul_1978 said:

As a severe hayfever sufferer, this is not bad news for now

I've got more of a issue with hayfever than the heat at the moment,never had it so bad!

[Nick L]

29.6 at Heathrow, 2C ahead of yesterday.

[Paul_1978]

10 minutes ago, markyo said:

I've got more of a issue with hayfever than the heat at the moment,never had it so bad!

Yes it's pretty bad at the mo. Thankfully we're halfway through the grass pollen season now. It seems to run last week in May to last week in July, so we're on the downhill to the finish now

[mb018538]

19 minutes ago, markyo said:

I've got more of a issue with hayfever than the heat at the moment,never had it so bad!

Anyone suggest anything?

I suffer terribly with hayfever for about 9-10 months a year, though high summer is worst. I’m at daily nosebleed stage now with the heat and high pollen.

I’ve tried Cetirizine, Loratadine, Beconase, Pirinase. I still suffer with itchy eyes and a blocked nose. When I go out cycling in the countryside it’s dreadful, nose running like a winter cold! 

Has anyone tried immunotherapy? Hayfever Injection? I’m put off by this as you have to pay now and it’s not 100% guaranteed to work. Plus if you get side effects you are stuck with them as it’s in your system for 3 months.

[Stabilo19]

Feels hotter than yesterday. 

30°C by midday, could see low 30s more widely than yesterday. Breeze-permitting. 

[Frost HoIIow]

UK weather: Highest ever UV levels predicted today before thunderstorms end heatwave

NEWS.SKY.COM

---

After the UK sweltered on its hottest day of the year, temperatures are expected to reach as high as 34C (93.2F)...

 

[mountain shadow]

1 hour ago, markyo said:

I've got more of a issue with hayfever than the heat at the moment,never had it so bad!

Have you ever tried a product called Haymax, you rub it around your nose and eyes. It's supposed to stop enough pollen getting in to cause an immune response?

I'm thinking about giving it a go when the next sunny spell appears. 

Edited June 25, 2020 by mountain shadow

[stainesbloke]

2 hours ago, Nick L said:

Regarding Heathrow...I think the biggest issue is that the weather station is sandwiched on a small area of grass between the north runway (one of the busiest runways in the world) and the northern perimeter roads and car parks. So it's between two large slabs of black tarmac. In addition, being in the northern side of the airport means that in any hot southerly, it's just advecting all of the heat from the airport towards the weather station. Anyone who has been to Heathrow will know that it's basically the size of a town in itself.

I think if you moved it to a patch of grass in the southwest corner of the airport you'd see some decrease in the summer maxima.

Yes, I think you have a point about moving the weather station, but Heathrow isn’t completely surrounded by dense suburbs, those are mainly to the E. To the W and SW there are multiple huge reservoirs, a moor and plenty of open land/farmland. Plus the weather station is situated in a vast open area. My home town of Staines-upon-Thames (as it is now known lol) is just 3 miles SSW if the airport and regularly records similar maximum temperatures, as do places such as Windsor to the W. Perhaps weather stations should not be placed at airports as they currently are in most places around the world?

[Nick L]

Way too hot for me out there. Couldn't scamper back to the air conditioned office fast enough after fetching some lunch!