General summer chat

[Metwatch]

13 hours ago, Frigid said:

A good example of a properly cool July wasn't too long ago, back in 2020. A CET of 15.8C, it was stuck around the high 14s low 15s for most of the month until the one day heat spike at the end. I suspect July 2023 would've been similar had the SSTs been around average.

I was going to ask this in here, but which July did everyone despised / liked more, 2020 or 2023? I missed both second halves of them, but I would say 2023 was the worse one despite being a little more convective. Both had a lack of warmth, but 2020 at least was drier, I think just after I left there were a few days of no rain. The first week or July 2023 however was also mostly dry.

[reef]

 Metwatch 2023 was better by miles here. Both were wet, but 2020 had just 97 hours of sunshine. It was the dullest of any summer month in this area in records back to 1980 and the only one below 100 hours. It was atrocious.

[B87]

 baddie No thanks, April though sunny and dry was about 3c below average here. May-August was absolutely dire, especially August.

[John S2]

In answer to the question about comparing July 2020 & July 2023, here in NW England there was a considerable difference between the two.

July 2023 is one of the most vile summer months I have experienced. It is the wettest July in the NW England precipitation series [POR=151 years] with 174mm. July 2020 was nowhere near as bad with 110mm which comes in as 36th wettest.

[Summerlover2006]

July 2020 was a lot less wet. From memory I remember a lot days where the sky was just cloud from end to end but I feel like not much rain came from it and don’t really remember much heavy rain. 
 

July 2023 felt a lot more wet but it felt a bit more sunnier there was that one hot day on the 7th and plenty of days with at least a bit of sunshine. 

so I would probably say 2023 was better.

 

Edited March 30 by Summerlover2006

[B87]

July 2020: av max 23.8c, 35mm rain, 195 sun hours

July 2023: av max 22.9c, 61mm rain, 169 sun hours

July 2023 was atrocious. Cool, wet and the dullest July for 31 years.

[summer blizzard]

July 23 was a humid month while July 20 felt cool. I prefer 20.

[kold weather]

 B87 my local area had by far the lowest 30 day sunshine levels ever recorded in mid June-mid July 2021. Absurd.

Legitimately it would have been a below average February... (I think it had 58hrs over a 28 day period!!)

Edited March 30 by kold weather

[baddie]

 B87 An April 2021 in June would translate to late-May/early-June 2023, perhaps with less North Sea murk

Edited March 30 by baddie

[B87]

 baddie April 2021 was massively below average both day and night. In summer I don't want chilly evenings.

[LetItSnow!]

 B87 Funnily enough the Heathrow average maxima for April 2021 is only exactly average to the 1961-1990 average but -1.8C below by night.

[B87]

 LetItSnow! The days were 2.0c below the current average.

[LetItSnow!]

 B87 -1.9C below the 1991-2020 average, but completely equal to the 1961-1990 average, as stated. 

Heathrow (Greater London) UK climate averages

WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

---

Heathrow UK climate averages

Fascinating to see the changes over time, isn't it?

[B87]

 LetItSnow! Glad I didnt grow up in the icy 60s.

[LetItSnow!]

 B87 If I had a couple wishes I would definitely erase the global warming and bring back the snowy winters and mild summers I never knew. Maybe I'll take up the dark arts to restore balance!  It's important to use old averages though to make sure as to not forget or undermime how much things have changed. And also, the 1980s was just as icy as the 1960s at times.

[B87]

 LetItSnow! If I was in charge, every Feb would be 2008 or 2019, ever summer would be June 2023, July 2018 and August 1995.

Anything cold enough to endanger the nice subtropical vegetation that we can grow will be consigned to history.

Edited March 30 by B87

[Summer8906]

 Metwatch I thankfully missed July 2023 being abroad, but looking at the synoptics and the reports, it sounded absolutely horrendous. The worst July since at least 1988 and perhaps since the 60s or early 70s. Literally zero settled days, by all accounts - worse than 1988 which managed two or three.

July 2020 was often cool and cloudy but rarely wet and had some half-decent conditions in the 2nd half. Drier than average overall.

So definitely 2020 better, by a country mile. July 2020 was not a month to despise. It was just a little meh for a mid-summer month.

 

Edited April 1 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

 B87 If I were in charge I'd have cold dry winters, "average" but dry springs, warm to hot summers stretching into mid-autumn, then a rapid change back to cold again for Dec.

So Nov-Feb below normal, average springs, warm summers and warm Sep-Oct.

Edited April 1 by Summer8906

[CryoraptorA303]

 Metwatch 2020 was nowhere near as bad and was drier than average along the south coast and in the West Midlands. It gets such bad reviews because it's competing with a heatwave that would be investigated for doping in an official competition in August and the sunniest, third-driest May on record. Not to mention April being very warm and very dry as well. Having slightly below average temps and being a bit dull it has no chance. If July 2020 took the place of 2023 then it'd be nowhere near as berated, it'd simply be a bit underwhelming after June. August 2023 gets horrible treatment for the same reason, it was a huge improvement on July after the first week but it failed to see anything comparable to June so it's just lumped into July.

 B87 Have the hot summers if you really need them (although I'd much prefer June 2006-July 2013-August 2022) but at least give us a decent winter afterward. Subtropical vegetation isn't supposed to be growing here anyway, the clue's in the name.

[baddie]

11 minutes ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

August 2023 gets horrible treatment for the same reason, it was a huge improvement on July after the first week but it failed to see anything comparable to June so it's just lumped into July.

If the synoptics were shifted 10 days earlier, meaning that freak September heatwave would be the last 10 days of August, then August 2023 would be almost up there with August 2022

Imagine if 28th March - 27th May 2021s synoptics were shifted a few days later. The absolute best April I could think of followed by the worst May ever (May 2021 did have a good last 5 days and the very end of April 2021 was cold and unsettled)

Edited April 1 by baddie

[Frigid]

 baddie Now imagine if June 2023 happened a year prior, that would be the warmest summer on record. 

[CryoraptorA303]

 Frigid It probably would've challenged 2017 for the hottest June day of the 21st century as spring 2022 had been much drier, and also significantly warmer than 2023 had, so the ground was already dried out by May. It wouldn't have quite beaten 34.5°C but there would have been widespread 33°C and one or two 34°Cs on the two hottest days, and we probably would've been looking at over a consecutive week of 30°C. Some local June records may have been beaten in the NW.

The drought in August would've been horrendous with such a hot and dry June added on, June 2022 was drier than average but not by much and if I recall, 2023 was drier by some margin, and it was much hotter anyway so any rain that did fall would've been dealt with a lot faster. August itself would've also been even hotter although not by much at this point as the ground was already seriously dry and diminishing returns would become a factor at some point, perhaps temps would've been boosted by a degree or so which would make it surpass 1995 and become the hottest on record, making July the only one to not reach this benchmark despite having the highest temp of the whole summer. July's position could've been boosted a bit by the drier and much hotter June drying out the ground more but I don't see it beating 2018 and 2006 no matter what.

Makes you wonder how bad things would've gotten in such a scenario if you then removed the wet autumn 2022 and inserted 2003 or 2016 instead which were both dry, or perhaps three months stitched together, like September 2003, October 2018 and November 2021. That would've produced a severe drought, especially if the alternate 2023 stayed dry. Sounds like the path to an even worse 1976, any heatwaves that do occur in this alternate 2023 will be automatically boosted significantly due to the aridity even if there are a couple months of average or slightly wet conditions over the winter, at this point significant rainfall would be needed to return to normal groundwater levels.

 baddie It would have certainly been very hot, and the extra sunlight would likely mean another day or two above 30°C and the max temp being more like 34.5-36.5°C. Not record-breaking on its own but extremely high for the time of year. Surprisingly the Sept 2023 heatwave didn't actually break a huge number of daily records, only the hottest three days set new records. The same heatwave in late August would likely break most of the existing daily records.

Back to this alternate disaster 2022, makes you wonder what could've happened if the Sept 2023 heatwave was inserted into 2022. I don't think anything truly insane would occur owing to the synoptics (you'd have to get the very hot air on the 5th on a Sly/SWly to see truly psychotic temps) but we would've seen considerably higher temps owing to the now-extremely dry ground from the June 2023-July/August 2022 frankenstein vs the ground not being excessively dry in September 2023. It'd probably be equivalent to this heatwave occuring in late August 2023, with another couple of days of 30°C added on and temps in the region of 34-36°C being seen. The 7th would've probably seen >34°C, the 9th widespread 35°C with the 35.6°C record possibly being exceeded and the 10th perhaps just about seeing a 36°C at Faversham. Assuming this alternate August 2022 saw temps about 1°C higher than in OTL due to this alternate June 2023 being inserted, it would've peaked at 35.9°C at Burlands Farm on the 13th, so if Faversham just about scratched out a 36°C on the 10th then this alternate September heatwave would actually see a higher max than the August one, although August would've been consistently hotter for longer as it would see three consecutive days above 35°C. A good number of August records in the South West would likely be broken by this alternate August 2022 as well.

Add the rest of September 2003 onto this alternate September 2023 and it's a real disaster, the drought would be a nightmare by this point and this alternate September 2022 would not only be the hottest on record, it'd likely end up being one of the 20 hottest months ever recorded in this country full-stop.

Edited April 1 by CryoraptorA303

[Summer8906]

23 hours ago, baddie said:

If the synoptics were shifted 10 days earlier, meaning that freak September heatwave would be the last 10 days of August, then August 2023 would be almost up there with August 2022

It depends where you are, here the stats show that Aug 2023 was cool by day, cloudy, and wet. I did miss it and to be quite honest I'm happy I did; it sounds like it was worse than July 2020 in this area (coolish by day, fairly cloudy, but dry).

[CryoraptorA303]

 Summer8906 It can hardly be said to have been as bad as July 2023 though.

Also, important to keep in mind that there was a very deep depression that moved over in the first week, the majority of August's rain likely came from that as I distinctly remember the rest of the month after that being modestly dry with only light showers on a few days aside from that.

Overall though it wasn't anything impressive as it was quite dull and very humid.

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 August 2023 really was so non-descript honestly. The month didn't reach 30C locally (neither did July!). It began cold and wet and ended cool, but the middle section had a lot of vaguely warm but unsettled patterns that meant a lot of days in the low to mid-20s. It honestly did feel a bit retro, like how in the old days you've have south-easterly but only get the temperature in the mid/upper 20s. We very much escaped the hot weather that month. Sort of was a very typical 21st century changeable August.

Edited April 2 by LetItSnow!