Moans, ramps and banter

[Alderc 2.0]

Wow the keyboard warriors have been on the cider this evening in here. Spicy conversation. 

[LetItSnow!]

 raz.org.rain I think, while that can’t be ruled out, I think is unlikely and probably won’t happen, but the continents proclivity for heat domes means we’ll probably be on the periphery of tapping into some hot or even very hot weather at times. An unscientific hunch says we’ll stay out the firing line this year as I’ve got 1998 vibes (my one good month theory holds up here as August 1998 was decent in the south) but this could go completely wrong of course. But I’m not sold on a hot summer. None of us know, and I think educated guesses from well knowledgeable members and experts are worth far more than the long range models!  

Edited March 23 by LetItSnow!

[Penguin16]

Really hoping that cold arctic air spreads south. Dazzling blue skies, some heat in the sun and a chill in the air in the shade. Just bliss.

[raz.org.rain]

I'm sure that last spring couldn't be described as overly dry, although I was doing surveying work in May and the soil was like solid concrete. Topsoil can dry out pretty quickly.

[*Stormforce~beka*]

 Metwatch I'll have to start charting this ... It's more interesting than the weather!

 raz.org.rain This is how it will go

[*Stormforce~beka*]

This has turned into the new banter thread from off the lounge lol

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 Metwatch One too many Pinot Aggregios

 Alderc 2.0 Scrumpy hits hard eh

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 Penguin16 April 2021 vibes. Would be good if so.

[NEVES SCREAMER]

 In Absence of True Seasons Ten pints of lager

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 NEVES SCREAMER I hope not Peroni. Otherwise me and Cryoraptor will have to block you

 

[NEVES SCREAMER]

 In Absence of True Seasons oh God. Not another one blocking me. I'm off.

[raz.org.rain]

24 minutes ago, *Stormforce~beka* said:

This is how it will go

There was an article published in the last few weeks that says cooler countries fall back on the fact that they expect their climate to always be temperate and cool, which poses a serious risk once hotter weather does hit. We get complacent and don't prepare, and struggle when the heat does eventually arrive. That's what it kind of feels like at the moment, we're assuming this pattern is the new normal and that summer 2023 will repeat itself. Recent history tells us that sudden and extreme flips can occur out of nowhere.

I see a lot of people assert that a hot and dry summer can't occur "so suddenly" after we've already had one, but I would argue that those summers are happening in tighter clusters. So what would have been a 1 in 10 year occurrence became a 1 in 5 year occurrence in the 2010s. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a 1 in 3 year occurrence this decade if it isn't already at that point.

Edited March 24 by raz.org.rain

[CharlieBear9]

So, asking someone who's unhappy with how wet everywhere is why they wish for more rain is either a "pile on", alcohol/cider driven, or an attack on their weather preferences.

Got it.
 

[SunnyG]

 In Absence of True Seasons Good for you perhaps. I would much prefer a 2022 repeat than the load of rubbish that were both 2021 and 2023. In my (fiction, clearly ha ha) book, April should be dry AND warm.

Edited March 24 by SunnyG

[SunnyG]

 CharlieBear9 No one's (well, at least most people aren't)  happy for it to be constantly wet, but some people prefer mild to cold and unfortunately, in this sad country of ours, mild often means rain.

[CharlieBear9]

 SunnyG Fully agree, and that's one of the reasons I prefer colder winters. I just found complaining about how wet it's been for the last year and then wanting weather conditions that would lead to more of it something of a paradox.

I'll know better than to question such things in future.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 SunnyG Oh I'd very much enjoy those Aprils too!

I just meant in terms of it were to be another April 2023 situation this year, I'd happily take April 2021 instead.

That month had very high sunshine hours which meant a lot of warmth during the day, on most days. Mornings and evenings were definitely chilly, yes. 

Dry ,sunny and warmer days are my ideal for April, but failing that, I'll take dry, sunny and crisp.

[marky810]

To give some idea how wet the ground is several holes have been dug near me by gas contractors. They're about 3ft deep and have about 2ft of water in them. I guess the water table must be very high. 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 raz.org.rain Yes, I've always maintained the cc isn't about making our climate "abnormally warmer/sunnier and drier" or "abnormally duller and wetter", it's about oscillating between protracted periods of both of these conditions. 

The last 5 years definitely demonstrates this. 

The new normal IMO isn't 2022 or 2023/4...it's both of them. Only time will tell if one pattern is more common than the other, or if it's just down to chance. 

The only consistent factor that seems to be a remaining pattern is a reduction in the frequency of proper cold and wintry conditions.

[MP-R]

 In Absence of True Seasons Indeed…. It seems to be playing out as the same weather we’ve always had, just for longer periods of time, and excluding more of the extremes like snow, thunderstorms, severe gales etc. This of course allows for longer dull periods, longer wet periods, longer dry periods and so potentially higher heatwave maxima if heatwaves last longer.

[SummerShower]

 In Absence of True Seasons yes I'd take an April 2021 too.  The month was actually drier here than April 2020 and I think only 3rd to the Aprils of 2007 and 2011 in recent times.  I wouldnt mind betting the sunshine figures werent far off 2020 either (i dont have acess to sunshine records so just a gut feeling).  There was a bit of wintriness in the 1st half to add interest, and the 2nd half was actually really good during the days once the almost daily frost had lifted.

if we were to have a 'colder' type april then id take this one anyday over 2012, for example.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 MP-R Yep. The extremes tend to just be in terms of protracted heat and protracted rainfall.

Properly exciting thunderstorms, lightning, big frosts, snow (obviously), etc... Less common, at least in my area, unfortunately. 

I think it's been years since I've seen proper lightning!?

I had hailstones yesterday which was the first time I've seen hail in god knows how long. Hail was pretty common from Oct to April when I was a child, and I'm barely 30 haha. 

Edited March 24 by In Absence of True Seasons

[CryoraptorA303]

11 hours ago, LetItSnow! said:

We saw a good example of how quickly things can dry out after the rains of February 2020 were followed by spring drought and things were already, at least locally (I was in the countryside at the time not the city) things dried up by early April.

The contrast was insane. Around the beginning of lockdown it was a swamp, by the end of April it was bone dry. By the time May had done its damage a lot of fields were the most dessicated I've ever seen them, even worse than by August 2022 or during summer 2018. Big, massive cracks in the soil in open fields and desperate wolf spiders running around everywhere. IIRC lyme disease rates skyrocketed that summer.

I would much prefer that April is a bit of a shock to the system, being around the 10th driest and fifth-warmest on record, and then for the rest of the year to be average to dry. Unfortunately it will likely be a choice of one extreme or the other, and if we do flip we will see record dryness. Something like every month from April being in the 33rd percentile, an extremely dry and hot August and then the driest and hottest September on record. And then of course the heavens will open again in October and we'll be having record wetness all over again. Either that or it'll continue into next year and we get 1976'd. 1973 was a very wet year after all.

[TheOgre]

The trouble is with April 2021 is the damaging frosts to the spring blossoms and would be even more damaging this year if we were to have a repeat as Spring 2024 seems well ahead of schedule. Magnolias are fully out already here and would be blackened.

[CryoraptorA303]

11 hours ago, raz.org.rain said:

I see a lot of people assert that a hot and dry summer can't occur "so suddenly" after we've already had one, but I would argue that those summers are happening in tighter clusters. So what would have been a 1 in 10 year occurrence became a 1 in 5 year occurrence in the 2010s. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a 1 in 3 year occurrence this decade if it isn't already at that point.

A lot of the historic summers occured after horrible Marches/Aprils, 1989, 1995, 2018 etc.. Even spring 2022 wasn't anything that special. It was overall dry, sure, but not to an insane extent, and May was actually a tad wetter than average, but it was also the fifth-warmest, so it was more humid than wet. It was only really 1976 and 2003 that happened after warm and dry springs, spring 2006 was dry but quite chilly. Even then, both 1976 and 2003 saw colder spells during the spring, March 1976 was surprisingly cold. 1990 also saw quite an unimpressive spring and a surprisingly cold April.

 TheOgre That's the main reason why I bar it. We need warm or at least average and dry. Overly cold at this point would just cause more damage, and we all know what May was like after that April...

Edited March 24 by CryoraptorA303