Summer 1996

[damianslaw]

25 years ago now, and with the euro football tournament on, there appears to be a fair amount of looking back at Summer 96 in general, football, music wise etc..

How about looking back at it weatherwise. I remember it being quite a decent summer, but with no significant heat, just the shortlived hot spell early June.. with alot of fine dry sunny weather and temps around or a bit above average. Lots if days of low-mid 20s maxima. It came on the back if the tremendous summer of 95, which from a Lake District perspective was better than 2018 and probably on a par with 1976. For this reason it is often forgotten. 

Anyone else like to share weather memories of summer 96..

[MP-R]

No specific memories from me as I was very young at the time, but the family weather records suggest a very similar profile to what you've described up there. The kind of summer I'd expect in this country with hot spells in all three months, plenty of fine and warm weather too, punctuated by some cool and unsettled spells. 

30 degrees was reached in all three months down here, albeit only just on all occasions - 30.0C on 07th June, 30.4C on 22nd July and 30.2C on 19th August.

There was then a notably wet and thundery period from the 23rd-28th August that gave the lion's share of the month's rainfall.

In the absence of a special summer, I'd gladly take a summer like 1996. August in particular, although less hot than 1997, was a better month overall with much more sunshine.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I remember I enjoyed this summer a lot in Tyneside, it had some of almost everything and all three months had above average sunshine, especially June.  All three of the main summer months had a sunny anticyclonic spell around midmonth, and in July and August, it ended with a thundery breakdown.  I remember some lightning displays shortly after sunset on 22 July 1996, and some thunder on the 23rd, and more thunder and lightning on 23 August.  There was also the memorable Spanish plume on 6-7 June. 

I remember July being a bit disappointing late in the month, but had no complaints about June or August.  18 August 1996 also hit 30C at Sunderland, somewhat unusual for coastal north-east England.  It also got to around 27C near the end of the July anticyclonic spell.

I remember though that my family didn't think that much of summer 1996, probably because it suffered by comparison with the summer of 1995 and a large part of summer 1994, and because it was preceded by a cold May and followed by a grey drizzly start to September.  It was also followed by the hot August of 1997.  All of this probably contributes to it being forgotten, but from the Scottish Lowlands southwards, there haven't been many sunnier summers since.

[damianslaw]

Agree with reviews above, I'd happily take a summer 96 every year. Overall it was a good one whilst never excessively hot, but a hot summer doesn't in my book make a good summer, rainfall and sunshine are more important factors.

I was 18 at the time and have fond memories, whilst working in a restaurant.. remember many a day wishing I was outside rather than in a hot kitchen! 

[Weather-history]

June and July 1996 were pretty decent months, less so with August but it was decent summer

 

[mushymanrob]

The CET appears to suggest an improving summer over the 3 months.. June 14.5c, July 16.5c August also 16.5c and it came about 20th in the Manchester Summer index didnt it?  Think it was overshadowed by 1995 which was one of the best.

[Weather-history]

1 hour ago, mushymanrob said:

The CET appears to suggest an improving summer over the 3 months.. June 14.5c, July 16.5c August also 16.5c and it came about 20th in the Manchester Summer index didnt it?  Think it was overshadowed by 1995 which was one of the best.

It is 20th in the index. Up here, August 1996 was the cloudiest and wettest of the summer months.  For Manchester, the August rainfall total  was the combined total of June and July. 

 

[SummerShower]

One of my favourite spells of warm/hot weather ever and seems to have been forgotten, occurred in this summer.  15-23rd July.  A classic anticyclone that started with easterly winds that gradually veered southerly.  Temperatures just very gradually rose day by day (depending on location of course).  However they peaked at 33.2 on the 22nd and many areas had severe thunderstorms into the 23rd.

The 7th June storms were great as well, an unofficial tornado was reported here in the evening.

[Sunny76]

Hmm, apart from the hot early June and widespread storms of Friday June 7th, July and august I found to be a little underwhelming from a London perspective.

Just seem to recall lots of cloudier days especially in august that summer. But, to be fair it wasn’t a terrible one either. 1993 and 98, and parts of 97 were worse than that.

However, my issue with 96 is probably because it followed the glorious summer of 95 and hot june and July of 1994. 

[hillbilly]

A great Summer,well short of 1995 but very dry.1995 was very dry but the winter 1995/96 was also very dry which left this area with resevoir and river levels almost as low as the previous year.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I checked the stats for RAF Waddington and here it was more similar to Manchester: June and July were dry and sunny with warm days, near average temperatures by night, whereas August was warm by day and night but with closer to average sunshine and rainfall.  August was a good month for the storm lovers around here, with 7 days with thunder. 

I got some surprises when I looked through the Waddington records going back to 1949.  The only sunnier summers were in 1959, 1975, 1976, 1989, 1995 and 2018, and the only drier summers were in 1959, 1975, 1976, 1991 and 1995 - and there haven't been any drier summers since.   This is despite me having used a Kipp-Zonen to Campbell-Stokes conversion for the summers of recent years when a Kipp-Zonen sunshine sensor was used.  So in this part of the country it seems that 1996 definitely goes down as a forgotten and underrated summer.

Edited June 19, 2021 by Thundery wintry showers

[AderynCoch]

A decent summer overshadowed by the one that came before it. 

[damianslaw]

1 minute ago, Thundery wintry showers said:

I checked the stats for RAF Waddington and here it was more similar to Manchester: June and July were dry and sunny with warm days, near average temperatures by night, whereas August was warm by day and night but with closer to average sunshine and rainfall.  August was a good month for the storm lovers around here, with 7 days with thunder. 

I got some surprises when I looked through the Waddington records going back to 1949.  The only sunnier summers were in 1959, 1975, 1976, 1989 and 1995, and the only drier summers were in 1959, 1975, 1976, 1991 and 1995 - and there haven't been any drier or sunnier summers since.  So in this part of the country it seems that 1996 definitely goes down as a forgotten and underrated summer.

It was a good summer overall, I remember alot of dry fine weather throughout. It came in the midst of an exceptionally dry 2 year period starting April 1995, driest on record.. ended May 97. A topsy turvy period temp wise, lots of warm and cold conditions.

[philglossop]

Yes 1996 was another half decent Summer- all helped by Euro 96, lots of drinking in pubs watching England. August wasn't as good but I was in Derbyshire in July on holiday and it felt pretty close to 1995. 

[Weather-history]

Remember this day well, totally missed on the showers and it was a really good day.

 

This was the summer that Cliff Richard sang to the Wimbledon Centre Court during a rain break and the terrible Atlanta Olympics 

[danm]

1996 was a decent summer down here in London - nowhere near as good as '95, but in most years we'd gladly take what '96 offered up. 

London had 6 days over 30c and 28 days at 25c or above. So plenty of warm and sunny weather, a handful of properly hot days and not that much in the way of rain that I can remember. 

The football and the music was good - far better than the music dross we get these days!

[cheeky_monkey]

what a summer 1996 was ..started with Euro 96..ended with me getting married ..weather was decent but was preceded by the summer of 1995 which as never been topped..so if it wasnt for Euro 96 and my wedding ..i probably wouldn't have remembered much at all about that summer 

[damianslaw]

Two great summers back to back 95-96, reminiscent of 75-76 combo, though 96 wasn't as warm as 75.

Indeed we had 4 very good summers for warmth in a row 94-97, 94 and 97 were much wetter with alot of thunder. Aug 97 was tropical, steamy humid heat.

Edited June 21, 2021 by damianslaw

[HafrenLMP1]

I'd agree with others; not as good as 1995, but that's hardly a surprise - but still a very good summer, especially after a cool May. With the football, the music, etc a great time, and with decent weather. Lots of memories of hot & sunny weather in July; finishing work and sitting in the garden for a few hours on many days, and nights out in just a short sleeve shirt.

Though I have a memory of mid/late August in the garden listening to the horse racing on 5 Live from York, and quickly clouding over, and absolutely pouring down; that was the last time I sunbathed that year.

[North-Easterly Blast]

I think that the summer of 1996 overall produced a fair amount of dry and pleasantly warm weather although rarely really hot, and as a result the overall CETs were nothing notable.

[Weather-history]

On 21/06/2021 at 18:28, damianslaw said:

Two great summers back to back 95-96, reminiscent of 75-76 combo, though 96 wasn't as warm as 75.

Indeed we had 4 very good summers for warmth in a row 94-97, 94 and 97 were much wetter with alot of thunder. Aug 97 was tropical, steamy humid heat.

Summer 1994 was a pretty decent summer.

Manchester summer indices

1994 240

1995 298

1996 245

 

[damianslaw]

7 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

Summer 1994 was a pretty decent summer.

Manchester summer indices

1994 240

1995 298

1996 245

 

Where does 97 rank, perhaps one of our most volatile of summers in last 30 years, bursts of heat and thunder, torrential rain at times. Suspect not great due to rainfall totals. 

[Weather-history]

32 minutes ago, damianslaw said:

Where does 97 rank, perhaps one of our most volatile of summers in last 30 years, bursts of heat and thunder, torrential rain at times. Suspect not great due to rainfall totals. 

232

[damianslaw]

4 hours ago, Weather-history said:

232

Not far behind 96 and 94, about right thanks to the very warm temps in June and periods of warm sunny weather in July. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

Yes, growing up in Tyneside I thought of 1994-96 as three good summers in a row.  Admittedly June 1994 had a west-east split due to a high frequency of westerlies, so some western areas had a rather cool cloudy month, but it was dry, sunny and quite warm in most eastern areas. 

I've always thought of the addition of 1997 to make "four in a row" marginal because of the last two-thirds of June 1997 (in particular the last week was a washout with maxima of 10-13C), and the hot August of 1997 had more emphasis on warm sticky nights.  But I certainly remember early June 1997 and parts of July having plenty of warm sunshine, and August was of course exceptionally hot.  Interestingly August 1997 was a very sunny month in parts of the north-west, less so in the south, which isn't that common in notably hot months.

There's known to be a perception among some that "summers were better in my childhood".  In my case, growing up in the 1990s, perhaps there's a strong case for arguing that.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Thundery wintry showers