1921....!

[ANYWEATHER]

1921 was the driest ever recorded in eastern ,central and southern England. Exceptional heatwaves occurred throughout the Planet. 

[Summer8906]

Wasn't 1921 persistently anticyclonic W-ly? So much drier in the S than elsewhere, and persistently mild throughout the year.

[Optimus Prime]

A pretty warm northern hemisphere temperature in 1921 compared to the 1890 - 1920 mean.

[cheeky_monkey]

1 hour ago, Optimus Prime said:

A pretty warm northern hemisphere temperature in 1921 compared to the 1890 - 1920 mean.

looks like a La Nina year judging by the temp profile of the Pacific

[Metwatch]

Looking at driest years in the Hadley centre precipiation data and 1921 comes up as top for a lot of regions.

For the England & Wales region, it is the second driest after 1788.

For south east England it completely obliterated other years and is by the far the driest with records going back to 1873.

Similar for central England and south west.

However for the north West England region, it is the 35th driest, so a north / south split is evident.

The region boundaries for reference:

 

Trevor Harley's summary of the year:

"1921 was the driest year on record: only 236 mm fell at Margate (Cliftonville). This figure is probably unreliable; a leak was later found in the rain gauge. Neverthless it was very dry in the area: Nearby Ramsgate logged 273 mm, and Southend only 271 mm. Much of lowland Britain recorded less than 500 mm, and much of the east and southeast only 350 mm - a shortfall of 40-50%. The drought was made worse because 1921 was a warm and sunny year. London recorded only 269 hours of rainfall (the average is 437 hours). This was just one of two occasions - and the last - in the twentieth century when an excellent June and July were followed by a poor August. In this case though September and October were also very good, with a notable late heatwave. With 1834, this year was the warmest year in the British temperature series until 1949."

For Coventry, 1921 had 441mm, the last time it was similarly dry was 2011 with 460.2mm.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Probably part in due to the rising greenhouse gases at the time. The temperature responds to CO2 logarithmically so the early 20th century emissions probably had a more profound impact on the planets temperature than even today. The lack of tropospheric aerosols until after world war 2 was probably also a considerable factor. 

[LetItSnow!]

We need some kind of program that can run synoptics with added variables like added temperature or imposing an anomaly onto another time of year etc to see what patterns of the past would produce now, because I imagine some of those years like 1921 would produce some exceptional  years nowadays with added warmth  in the atmosphere. 

[Metwatch]

5 hours ago, LetItSnow! said:

We need some kind of program that can run synoptics with added variables like added temperature or imposing an anomaly onto another time of year etc to see what patterns of the past would produce now, because I imagine some of those years like 1921 would produce some exceptional  years nowadays with added warmth  in the atmosphere. 

One for @Earthshine methinks! 

[Summer8906]

17 hours ago, Metwatch said:

Looking at driest years in the Hadley centre precipiation data and 1921 comes up as top for a lot of re

Trevor Harley's summary of the year:

"1921 was the driest year on record: only 236 mm fell at Margate (Cliftonville). This figure is probably unreliable; a leak was later found in the rain gauge. Neverthless it was very dry in the area: Nearby Ramsgate logged 273 mm, and Southend only 271 mm. Much of lowland Britain recorded less than 500 mm, and much of the east and southeast only 350 mm - a shortfall of 40-50%. The drought was made worse because 1921 was a warm and sunny year. London recorded only 269 hours of rainfall (the average is 437 hours). This was just one of two occasions - and the last - in the twentieth century when an excellent June and July were followed by a poor August. In this case though September and October were also very good, with a notable late heatwave. With 1834, this year was the warmest year in the British temperature series until 1949."

For Coventry, 1921 had 441mm, the last time it was similarly dry was 2011 with 460.2mm.

 

Arguably it wasn't the last time in the 20th century when an excellent June and July was followed by a (relatively) poor August - that would quite nicely describe 1994.

(What was the other occasion prior to 1921, incidentally? 1906 had a notable heatwave in August; 1911 had a good August IIRC, and I can't remember hearing about any other early-20th-century years with a good June and July).

Edited January 1 by Summer8906

[Metwatch]

5 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

Arguably it wasn't the last time in the 20th century when an excellent June and July was followed by a (relatively) poor August - that would quite nicely describe 1994.(What was the other occasion prior to 1921, incidentally? 1906 had a notable heatwave in August; 1911 had a good August IIRC, and I can't remember hearing about any other early-20th-century years with a good June and July).

1908 seems the closest match but July wasn't overly excellent and August could have been worse looking at wetterzentrale NOAA archives. The monthly summaries:

June. A dry month in England. The Tunguska meteorite event on the 30th led to some spectacular sunsets and bright nights.

July. The month was most notable for containing Scotland's equal hottest day: 32.8 at Dumfries on the 2nd (a record broken in 2003). The month was very warm at the start, before becoming cool and unsettled from the 4th. It was very wet midmonth. It then became warmer and more settled again, particularly in the south, from the 20th onwards.

August. A cool month.

[Summer8906]

Yes, I remember reading about 1908 as it seemed an interesting year overall, though the summer struck me as being slightly better than average rather than containing two notably good months, which sounds about right from your( @Metwatch) description.

July 1908 sounds rather like July 2001, perhaps.

Edited January 1 by Summer8906