Moans, ramps and banter

[Summer8906]

4 hours ago, TwisterGirl81 said:

I really question Copenhagen and Stockholm sunshine hours, I can’t believe they are sunnier than London 

I can, given they are further east and thus further away from the Atlantic - perhaps Copenhagen less so, as it has a lot of sea to the west and southwest, but also far enough east for Atlantic systems to weaken somewhat.

In particular, Stockholm has high mountains separating the Atlantic and it, so I can well imagine the spring and summer months are very sunny.

When it comes to capitals, I would expect Dublin, Reykjavik and Oslo to be duller than London, but in Europe (and for that matter, most of the world) that's probably it! Wonder what capitals are duller than London: Lima, Peru which is well known for attracting mist off the Pacific - but anywhere else? Wellington, NZ? Amsterdam, perhaps, due to the North Sea to the west (which might make it duller than London)?

(EDIT: Oslo is actually slightly sunnier, but Dublin and particularly Reykjavik and Lima are duller. Wellington, despite its maritime location is much sunnier. Wikipedia doesn't give figures for Amsterdam. So is London the 4th-dullest capital in the world?)

(Wellington is an interesting one - it's sunnier but its warmest month is cooler than London's warmest, 20.4C mean max in Feb so no month achieves a 21C mean max. It's also never reached 32C. But it still manages 2058 hours of sunshine!)

I guess London has a "perfect storm" of closeness to the poles and a moderately maritime climate. Other cities are more maritime but closer to the equator, or further from the equator but less maritime.

Another surprising statistic is that from 1991-2020, August was the sunniest month relative to the time of year, not May, June or July. That is very hard to believe given August has mostly been dull and unsettled since 2006; May-July always "seems" the sunniest period.

Edited February 22 by Summer8906

[joggs]

I'm personally looking for warmth already. Can't wait until the sun gets high enough in the sky to trigger spring showers off. See some great cloudscapes. Obviously with drier warmer spells in between.

Final warming will probably bring dull,cool easterlys no doubt

[Summer8906]

1 hour ago, East Lancs Rain said:

So for any Londoners who think the current climate is bad, be grateful it’s not between 1960 and 1990!

I lived through some of 1960-1990 and clearly remember 1981-90... and I would argue that decade was better than now!

4 good summers (83/84/89/90) amongst a lot of poor ones (comparable to the last 10 years or so) but the winters were much more interesting.

It was cooler, yes, but I'd certainly take 1981-90 over 2014-23.

I think one difference between the 80s and now was the type of cloud, which doesn't come through so much in the stats. I get the impression that the "old days", with their cooler Pm airmasses, produced more days of sunny starts and cloud build up by day whereas nowadays has more in the way of damp SW-lies with cloud streaming in from the word go but with some short-lived sunny intervals later in the day.

I'd hazard a guess RH and DP was lower in the 80s, even in the cloudy spells.

Edited February 22 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

7 hours ago, Stabilo19 said:

I think some here have a short memory because we've had plenty of cracking sunny and hot weather in recent summers, at least in the south of the UK.. 

2018 and 2022, yes, and before that, 2013 and 2014.

Just four in 17 years, 2007-23. Around 25%, really not great.

Some of the other summers had one good, or OK, month with two poor ones, e.g. 2019 and 2023, but one good month and two poor ones doesn't make a good summer.

Edited February 22 by Summer8906

[knocker]

I am very saddened to note the the air of despair and desperation that has crept into the Mod thread over the last few days. 

[cheese]

 TwisterGirl81 regarding Stockholm at least there’s nothing surprising about it really - it’s significantly further east so more sheltered from Atlantic weather systems, and significantly further north so summer days are much longer. Southern Sweden and Finland have better summers than anywhere in the UK imo. 

Stockholm gets 1898 hours of sun a year on average. It’s sunnier than London in every month from March to September. It’s probably the sunniest major city in Europe north of the Alps. And yet it is still duller than any major American city. 

Europe as a whole is a very dull continent away from the Mediterranean. Even a ‘sunny’ city in the south of France like Toulouse gets no more sun than Pittsburgh or Seattle (both considered very dull by North American standards).

Edited February 22 by cheese

[raz.org.rain]

 Summer8906 I don't disagree, it's hard to rate a summer such as 2023 due to the dire midsummer conditions, but we did get a record breaking June and a fantastic first half of September. The theme of the past decade or so is that we've pretty much been guaranteed at least one or two hot spells. I would say it's exceedingly uncommon for a yearly max below 32°c these days.

[raz.org.rain]

 knocker very uninspiring outlook. Apart from this "cooler" spell - which will amount to average temperatures and a lot of cold rain - there's nothing particularly interesting to look forward to.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 HurricaneSteve it's manageable now though eh? In Jan I'd literally go make a cup of tea and return to 5 new pages of comments in the thread which was the point where I resigned to "I'm out"

[WYorksWeather]

Just still not a lot of clarity on where things are going. There's no real optimism for either any cold or snow or any early warmth.

I'm keeping an occasional check on the sea level pressure ensembles. There is a rise in pressure into March, but mostly in the 1010-1015mb range. Nowhere near enough to be assured of anything dry.

We need something like the GFS OP to verify, which was at the top end of the sea level pressure ensemble. Nothing spectacular either way temperature wise, but a definite dry spell for almost everywhere lasting nearly a week from day 10 to day 16.

 

[SunnyG]

 cheese Still, better to be in Toulouse than, say, Hull or Doncaster

Edited February 22 by SunnyG

[Sun Chaser]

 emmett garland Being half Polish I see the weather there a lot at all times of year. The seasonal variation is great - saw snow everywhere on my trip there in late October 2017 but almost two years later we were sunbathing in 25c as late as October 24th!!

Plenty of heat and banging thunderstorms in the summer too. In August 2022 (for 4 days in a row) and July 2023 I saw some incredible thunderstorms over there.

[raz.org.rain]

Promising signs 

 

[Frigid]

 raz.org.rain Anything dry will do. Absolutely sick of this persistent wet weather.

[East Lancs Rain]

4 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

(Wellington is an interesting one - it's sunnier but its warmest month is cooler than London's warmest, 20.4C mean max in Feb so no month achieves a 21C mean max. It's also never reached 32C. But it still manages 2058 hours of sunshine!)

Wellington does have an interesting climate. It’s a very temperate climate, with average highs of around 20C in summer and 12C in winter, so it’s pretty mild year round, with plenty of sunshine. My kind of climate really. However, Wellington is also very windy - it’s the windiest city in the world in fact. So a lot of the time it probably feels a lot cooler than the air temp. However, with the extra sunshine, and with it being slightly closer to the equator than London, will help to counteract the windy weather to some degree, I would’ve thought. 

 

If I had to choose between living in London or Wellington, I’d probably choose London. Because maxes of 24C in summer are a bit high for me, I prefer 20-22C, and London can get really hot sometimes, whereas Wellington is cooler and more consistent with fewer and less intense heatwaves. And Wellington is warmer in winter too, and considering London doesn’t usually get even a single snowflake in winter these days, I might as well take the milder temperatures.
 

I’ve attached a couple of screenshots of the current summer weather forecast for Wellington, and it looks quite pleasant in my opinion, with plenty of sunny or partly cloudy days around 21/22°C and a moderate breeze. But it can get so windy that people struggle not to get blown over. Even in summer. 

 

Heres a couple of videos of the wind in Wellington. In the summer! Makes our named “storms” look like a gentle breeze.

 

 

Edited February 23 by East Lancs Rain

[raz.org.rain]

11 minutes ago, East Lancs Rain said:

I had to choose between living in London or Wellington, I’d probably choose London. Because maxes of 24C in summer are a bit high for me, I prefer 20-22C, and London can get really hot sometimes, whereas Wellington is cooler and more consistent with fewer and less intense heatwaves. And Wellington is warmer in winter too, and considering London doesn’t usually get even a single snowflake in winter these days, I might as well take the milder temperatures.

London is expected to get worse over the next few decades too. The urban heat island effect will inevitably make the effects of climate change much more potent.

[cheese]

 Sun Chaser interestingly enough Poland has probably seen one of the biggest reductions in average snow days of any European country. There aren’t many places left in Europe for reliably cold & snowy winters anymore unfortunately.

Edited February 23 by cheese

[East Lancs Rain]

On 21/02/2024 at 16:35, markyo said:

Desperately need this colder air now, this vile mild crap has hung around far to long, fingers crossed this change in patterns lasts long into March, we need it!!

What we desperately need is a long dry spell to let the reservoirs and river levels go down, allow the ground to dry out, as well as some sunshine to lift everyone’s mood. Whether it’s cold or mild doesn’t really matter, we just need prolonged dry spell.

 

On 22/02/2024 at 01:12, East Lancs Rain said:

Just goes to show that the grass is always greener on the other side. They are fed up of constant warmth/heat and sunshine and can only dream of a cloudy and rainy climate. Whereas us (well, many Brit’s anyway) are fed up of the constant grey skies and rain, and a place where its warm and sunny year round seems like a paradise right now. 

And to add to that, there’s someone on here from Canada @cheeky_monkey who prefers our (almost) snowless winters over a Canadian winter, a kind of winter that the coldies on here could only dream of…

Edited February 23 by East Lancs Rain

[Mapantz]

Showery conditions + moon light = good clouds on the webcam.

Had a smattering of hail from that.

[East Lancs Rain]

The daily express is at it again now… At least it’s not written by Nathan Rao this time.

 

 

UK snow forecast: New map shows exact date -3C 'Beast from the East' hammers Britain | Weather | News | Express.co.uk

WWW.EXPRESS.CO.UK

---

Winter's not over yet and the UK may be on the brink of a big freeze.

 

[markyo]

4 hours ago, East Lancs Rain said:

Whether it’s cold or mild doesn’t really matter, we just need prolonged dry spell.

We need the cold desperately, ask any arable farmer, the water logged fields need a good freeze to help with the breaking up of the clag most  are faced with, dry yes needed but not mild. Nature also needs the reset of the weather, this mild Winter is detrimental, not a positive.

[Weather-history]

 Mapantz

 

Same here

 

[SunSean]

Every time I look at the cloud satellite, it's always the same 2 poxy places hogging all the sunshine- Cork city in South West Ireland or Aberdeen in North East Scotland. When did these 2 locations become the sunniest in the British Isles??? LOL.

[ANYWEATHER]

 cheese Rubbish. If you look at the Snowless Winters for instance ,the Alps had this scenario statisticaly between 1940 and 1960, perhaps not completely snow less ,but during  those years  low snow fall for this area.

. Nothing new with fluctuations in snowfall over the decades and centuries. ☺

Edited February 23 by ANYWEATHER

[SunnyG]

All that drama about wind and rain and yesterday was just an ordinary winter day with a bit of wind (not strong enough to call it a gale) and rain. How did that warrant a yellow warning I honestly do not understand.