Summer 2021: Moans, Groans, Ramps and Banter

[Daniel*]

1 minute ago, NEVES SCREAMER said:

Absolutely shocking. But when you have a turgid spring and summer it's no surprise. 

Here’s breakdown April was exceptionally dry but cold what a cruel year it has been, from buckets of cold rain in January.   

 

[NEVES SCREAMER]

Just now, Daniel* said:

Here’s breakdown April was exceptionally dry but cold what a cruel year it has been, from buckets of cold rain in January.   

 

Awful. It's been awful all year. Jet stream persistently southerly tracked.  Barely any long term settled weather . Just cold wet rubbish.

[damianslaw]

Jumped from late October Saturday, to early October yesterday, today to late September.. we might eventually reach early-mid August.. in September no doubt!

Edited August 9, 2021 by damianslaw

[TheOgre]

The weather is set to improve for a few days here to 21-22C but as a whole this is the worst August since 2017.

[The real Lomond snowstorm]

36 minutes ago, Daniel* said:

Here’s breakdown April was exceptionally dry but cold what a cruel year it has been, from buckets of cold rain in January.   

 

At this rate you will likely end up with half the average annual rainfall that occurs here. And about a third of the average rainfall  that occurs a few miles up the road.

 

[Thundery wintry showers]

On 09/08/2021 at 17:48, Alderc said:

Been having a bit of break the past few days, but coming back to the sunshine conversations, but also answering the above, something HAS clearly changed in the weather in this part of the south coast with regards to sunshine. Just look at these numbers, I've just updated the data set from Hurn airport. Annual sunshine amounts here have crashed 7% with Summer taking the brunt, the facts are absolutely undeniable. 

 

Some of that could well be due to the replacement of the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder at Hurn with a Kipp-Zonen sensor in 2004.  Campbell-Stokes recorders have a tendency to overburn the card, particularly in summer.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/hurndata.txt

The mean annual figure of 1,598 hours for 2011-2020, derived from a Kipp-Zonen sensor, is roughly consistent with a Campbell-Stokes figure of around 1,750 hours, which is around what was recorded during the 1990s.  If we correct for the change of sensor, I see evidence of a decline in sunshine amounts in June and August (but not July), offset by increased sunshine in winter and spring.

The summers of the 1990s were exceptionally sunny, and the two subsequent decades have seen a return to cloudier summers, but probably no duller than those of the 1970s.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Thundery wintry showers

[NEVES SCREAMER]

2 minutes ago, Thundery wintry showers said:

Some of that could well be due to the replacement of the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder at Hurn with a Kipp-Zonen sensor in 2004.  Campbell-Stokes recorders have a tendency to overburn the card, particularly in summer.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/hurndata.txt

The mean annual figure of 1,598 hours for 2011-2020, derived from a Kipp-Zonen sensor, is roughly consistent with a Campbell-Stokes figure of around 1,750 hours, which is around what was recorded during the 1990s.  If we correct for the change of sensor, I see evidence of a decline in sunshine amounts in June and August (but not July), offset by increased sunshine in winter and spring.

The summers of the 1990s were exceptionally sunny, and the two subsequent decades have seen a return to cloudier summers, but probably no duller than those of the 1970s.

They usually say 3 summers in 10 which is a good average. However we have had 1 good summer since 2006. That was 2018. So seems to be one good summer in 15 now.

[Daniel*]

25 minutes ago, The real Lomond snowstorm said:

At this rate you will likely end up with half the average annual rainfall that occurs here. And about a third of the average rainfall  that occurs a few miles up the road.

 

Well yes I don’t know how you cope we’re along with parts of coastal Essex driest in UK. 

[TheOgre]

23 minutes ago, NEVES SCREAMER said:

They usually say 3 summers in 10 which is a good average. However we have had 1 good summer since 2006. That was 2018. So seems to be one good summer in 15 now.

2013 was a good summer. July 2013 had a long heatwave. June and July 2014 were good summer months too.

[NEVES SCREAMER]

1 minute ago, TheOgre said:

2013 was a good summer. July 2013 had a long heatwave. June and July 2014 were good summer months too.

Well I dont remember them as being brilliant summers. Bits and bobs here and there.

[Azazel]

Another ghastly wet and cold evening here. Can’t wait for 8 more months of this.

[Stargazer]

3 hours ago, Thundery wintry showers said:

Some of that could well be due to the replacement of the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder at Hurn with a Kipp-Zonen sensor in 2004.  Campbell-Stokes recorders have a tendency to overburn the card, particularly in summer.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/stationdata/hurndata.txt

The mean annual figure of 1,598 hours for 2011-2020, derived from a Kipp-Zonen sensor, is roughly consistent with a Campbell-Stokes figure of around 1,750 hours, which is around what was recorded during the 1990s.  If we correct for the change of sensor, I see evidence of a decline in sunshine amounts in June and August (but not July), offset by increased sunshine in windes have seen a return to cloudier summers, but probably no duller than those of the 1970s.ter and spring.

The summers of the 1990s were exceptionally sunny, and the two subsequent deca

Interestingly, the KZ recorder at Reading University seems to consistently read 5-10% higher than their CS recorder - recent records are at

Weather data - Dept of Meteorology - University of Reading

WWW.MET.READING.AC.UK

---

University of Reading past weather

 It's possible of course that the latter is more obscured by surrounding trees and other obstructions. As for recorded sunshine totals, these have slightly increased here over the years. I believe the university uses the CS recorder as its reference.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Stargazer

[Thundery wintry showers]

I guess it depends on your standards for a "good" summer, but I reckon that by most standards 2013 would qualify as well as 2018.  2014 is also a contender, but for some the August might have let it down a bit too much.

Looking further back, trying to keep standards roughly consistent, I could suggest the following from earlier decades:

1940s - 1940, 1947, 1949

1950s - 1955, 1959

1960s - 1969 (yes, just the one!)

1970s - 1975, 1976

1980s - 1983, 1984, 1989

1990s - 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996

2000s - 2003, 2006

So I don't think the 2010s having just 2013 and 2018 and arguably 2014 makes it an especially poor decade.

[summer blizzard]

2 hours ago, NEVES SCREAMER said:

Well I dont remember them as being brilliant summers. Bits and bobs here and there.

2013 is definitely a memory failure. July 2013 was almost universally hot, dry and sunny nationwide and not just a week long flash in the pan.

We have however seen a more statistically normal pattern since 2003 in summer months.

[MP-R]

21 minutes ago, Thundery wintry showers said:

I guess it depends on your standards for a "good" summer, but I reckon that by most standards 2013 would qualify as well as 2018.  2014 is also a contender, but for some the August might have let it down a bit too much.

Looking further back, trying to keep standards roughly consistent, I could suggest the following from earlier decades:

1940s - 1940, 1947, 1949

1950s - 1955, 1959

1960s - 1969 (yes, just the one!)

1970s - 1975, 1976

1980s - 1983, 1984, 1989

1990s - 1990, 1994, 1995, 1996

2000s - 2003, 2006

So I don't think the 2010s having just 2013 and 2018 and arguably 2014 makes it an especially poor decade.

I’d add 2005 to the list too. Even the first half of September was good that year too, albeit not included in summer rankings.

1 minute ago, summer blizzard said:

2013 is definitely a memory failure. July 2013 was almost universally hot, dry and sunny nationwide and not just a week long flash in the pan.

We have however seen a more statistically normal pattern since 2003 in summer months.

Indeed! A very dry summer too. Grass was brown here until September. In the west at least, the first third of June was very sunny and August also featured a lot of dry fine days, if not hot. Spilled into early September too.

[Frigid]

On 09/08/2021 at 18:40, Daniel* said:

Here’s breakdown April was exceptionally dry but cold what a cruel year it has been, from buckets of cold rain in January.   

 

Even to this day, I can't help to ponder about April this year. Truly exceptional that month was. Probably won't encounter an April similar to 2021 in a very long time. 

[BruenSryan]

I'd largely say the same list of 'good' summers for Ireland except remove 1994 which was terrible here as we were too far west to tap into the fine weather (typical) and add 1968 which was very sunny with drought in this country - I know England had a very different story, sort of similar to 2021 in a way but 1968 was a different kettle of fish. 

[Daniel*]

 

[TheOgre]

In the 2010s the great summers were from my memory:

2013 - hot dry July and warm August

2018 - warm dry June and hot dry July

Good summers:

2014 - warm June and July, poor August but redeemed by a warm dry September.

2019 - poor first halves of all three and intense heat in the second half of all three.

[Guest]

8 hours ago, summer blizzard said:

2013 is definitely a memory failure. July 2013 was almost universally hot, dry and sunny nationwide and not just a week long flash in the pan.

We have however seen a more statistically normal pattern since 2003 in summer months.

2013 was a funny year, it snowed a couple of times in April, May was nearly as bad as this May and it didn’t reach 20C until the last day of the month. June was very bland with no warm spells here, in fact it didn’t reach 25C until the 7th July, it then reached that mark on 19 of the next 21days and the month averaged 25.5C. Also we had 4 consecutive days of storms which mostly came from the north east as well as 300hrs of sun. August was decent too as was the first half of September. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

On 09/08/2021 at 23:58, BruenSryan said:

I'd largely say the same list of 'good' summers for Ireland except remove 1994 which was terrible here as we were too far west to tap into the fine weather (typical) and add 1968 which was very sunny with drought in this country - I know England had a very different story, sort of similar to 2021 in a way but 1968 was a different kettle of fish. 

Yeah, I had some doubts about including 1994, and also to some extent 1990, as there was a fair amount of regional variation in those two summers.  I was going mainly by the Met Office's UK areal averages for sunshine, rainfall and Tmax, which are only a broad average.  Certainly I recall Lancaster's stats for 1994 being unimpressive, a dull cool June and August outweighing a warm sunny thundery July, and again in 1990 some western areas had below-average sunshine in June and August.  Even in 1996 there was a regional exception in the north of Scotland.

1968 was an odd summer in that it was cool, wet and had an exceptionally dull July in most parts of England but in Ireland and western Scotland it was sunny and dry.  1977 is another summer that springs to mind as being dry and sunny in parts of the NW, also containing a hot spell in early July, making it three fine summers in a row in some regions, but June and August 1977 were wet and dull towards the SE.

[Met.]

I'm on an international weather forum and temperatures have been hitting 23°C+ in Iceland in the last few days apparently. Could Iceland record higher temps this month than the UK? That would be funny.

[Jon Somerset]

Sunday afternoon brought a sunny - if windy and cool -respite allowing some weekend outdoor activities but weather has reverted to pattern of a bit of early morning sunshine which turns into overcast grey clouds with periodic showers since then . Even today, with local forecasts and weather apps saying dry, it’s actually heavy showers! 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

1 hour ago, Thundershine said:

I'm on an international weather forum and temperatures have been hitting 23°C+ in Iceland in the last few days apparently. Could Iceland record higher temps this month than the UK? That would be funny.

Wow that's amazing/mad! LOL!! Anyone know what their record temps are so far?

[emmett garland]

The national record is 30.6 I think and they have already had 26 and 27 degrees in July