Worryingly Wet & Worryingly Sunless

[al78]

 kold weather SE England has remained wet through March, not as bad as February but to be good enough it is not sufficient to be better than the worst.

 

[CryoraptorA303]

 al78 Absolutely pathetic weather, when's the last time East Malling came up for a wet record? Normally we're one of the driest!

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 Andy Bown It's obscene. 

I've needed more lights on in the house recently than during the cold spell in Jan, because that cold spell was actually sunny and bright, even though we know have longer days and the potential for extra sunlight as its mid March. 

The next 5-7 days looks effectively more of the same. 

One of the dullest and wettest protracted periods of weather I've had in my lifetime. Maybe the dullest and wettest in terms of a 12 month period. 

 al78 Yes, it is no saving grace that March is slightly less woeful than Feb, because after the Autumn and Winter we have had, only a March with well-below average rainfall and above-average sunshine would have sufficed in terms of balancing things out at all.

 

[MP-R]

11 hours ago, LetItSnow! said:

and how springlike February was

Interesting you found February springlike. For me, 2023 was a springlike February as the emphasis was on sunshine and hardly any rain. This February just felt more like a naff November and had rainfall amounts to successfully emulate one.

[Wade]

As others have commented, we seem to have either very wet or very dry spells, there doesn't seem to be anything in the middle. 2022 was very dry and there was a 'worryingly dry' thread and people were getting worried that we'd have a situation like 76, now we have the complete opposite, eventually the tide will turn again 100%, the question is when. 

[LetItSnow!]

 MP-R When February is running warmer than an average April up until the closing days it’s springlike to me!  

[TonyH]

 Wade indeed droughts come Summer!

[MP-R]

 LetItSnow! Bit simplistic for me, but fair enough. Here, average maxima were 04.5C lower than my April average, although minima were 00.5C above. That narrow temperature range, plus lack of sun, plus abundant rainfall spells autumn for me rather than spring.

Granted, however, that for a few hours on Thursday 15th it did feel springlike...

[LetItSnow!]

 Wade That dry spell while intense wasn’t even able to stand up to the likes of droughts between 1974-1976, 1989-1992, 1995-1997, 2004-2006 and most recently 2010-2012. Roger pointed out even a few years ago how the 2020s was prolific at producing extremely wet months and that’s no doubt become even more true now. 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 CryoraptorA303 The weather just amplifies and exacerbates everything else. It's like the final nail in the miserable coffin of it all. 

Obviously, a sunny, bright and warm day, or a beautiful clear or snowy wintry day, doesn't literally put food on the table or make a government less corrupt, but it just makes people's spirits feel a bit brighter and helps people socialise.

It also fosters more of a "get up and go" mindset, at least in me. This sort of weather, particularly as it's been dominant for months and months now, just makes me want to do nothing. I have such little energy and my mental sharpness is dulled also. Which, obviously, is not the physical and mental state you want to be in to A) make positive change in your own life, or B) try to make positive change in your community and country if you were inclined to do so. A lower energy/vibration population is far, far more compliant and easy to placate...

I won't try to claim that the lives of the average person in, say, Rio Di Janeiro is all roses, because it's demonstrably not. But when I visited that city a few years back (2019), I was struck with just how at ease and...well...joyous, so many people seemed to be, despite having far less than us in the UK materially-speaking. People walk along the beach with their partners after work and watch the sunset, kids play and laugh outside daily, people go on early morning hikes to see the sunrise over the city from the highest points. The positivity just emanates everywhere you go. That is partly cultural, I'll admit, as globally-speaking Northern Europeans are reserved and less outwardly joyous...but indeed, why might this historically be the case? Social-norms, yes, but how far does a climate of a place dictate said social-norms of a type of people? Aussies are considered far more extroverted than Brits, and they're definitely more active and outdoorsy also...no surprises as to why.

 

[LetItSnow!]

 MP-R Well down here most days ranged between 11C and 15C and while it was very dull and very wet, blossom, bushes and even some trees began to bloom early in the month and there was that spell on the 15th which saw temperatures in the mid-teens. Plus the CET was in the mid 8s up until like the 20th. That’s pretty spring like to me. This country doesn’t even really have true seasonal weather in any season other than wet and windy seeing as some springs can be like 2020, others like 2023. April 2018 for example was very dull and wet bar that hot spell. 

[Wade]

 LetItSnow! I agree, I can think of many very wet months in the 2020's so far, February 2020, October 2020, December 2020 and lots more since then.

[MP-R]

3 minutes ago, LetItSnow! said:

This country doesn’t even really have true seasonal weather in any season other than wet and windy

This is the problem, yes. All the right weather conditions but often at the wrong time of year. 

I'm sure my perception of February might be different if I lived in London. Sadly, I am in a cooler wetter part of the country in prevailing Atlantic conditions (thankfully not to the degree of places further north and west though!).

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 LetItSnow!

4 minutes ago, LetItSnow! said:

This country doesn’t even really have true seasonal weather in any season other than wet and windy seeing as some springs can be like 2020, others like 2023

My main gripe, and when people say "no, we do have proper seasons!", the disparity between two Springs in just a 2 or 3 year period is evidence enough to the contrary. It's just so random. If somebody foreign asked me "what's the weather like in London in April-May?" I'd reply "which year?" lol. A Spring like 2020 is literally a different climate to a Spring like 2023. 

Yes, we obviously have "cooler periods" and "warmer periods" but our seasons are now predominantly defined by the number of daylight hours, than solid and consistent distinction in weather conditions. It's basically just:

April to Sept - the ' mild and bright' period (predominantly cloudy, often wet, and with a near-guaranteed of a few heat bursts).

Oct to March - the 'cool and dark' period (predominantly cloudy, often wet, and with a potential chance of some wintry bursts that could deliver snow). 

[al78]

 LetItSnow! Not sure I agree with that statement:

2022 European drought - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

"July 2022 was the driest July in England since 1935."

"Parts of Yorkshire experienced their driest period on record and emergency pipes were laid."

"The Cornwall hosepipe ban continued to be active into 2023, and was extended to cover large parts of Devon on 25 April 2023. This was done in an attempt to replenish water levels at the Roadford Reservoir ahead of that year's summer."

Europe's drought on course to be worst for 500 years, European Union agency warns

NEWS.SKY.COM

---

This year is set to be even worse than in 2018, when unusually favourable conditions in some parts of the bloc protected it from drought elsewhere, and the worst since the sixteenth...

And then there were the wildfires at the peak of the heat:

 

Edited March 13 by al78

[LetItSnow!]

 al78 I’m not saying it wasn’t intense, but it was no match against the aforementioned years in my opinion sheerly down to length. The drought effectively ended by September and (bar the second half of January 2023 and February 2023) well above normal rainfall has persisted since. Also 2021 was mostly very wet up until the autumn, particularly in the southeast where it was a wet summer. I’d say the most intense of the dry period was condensed from November 2021 to August 2022 and even then February 2022 was wet overall (average in the south). 

 

Im not saying it wasn’t dry, but it shows that the fact that it’s our only noteworthy dry spell bar perhaps spring 2020 and late 2016-early 2017 compared to almost every year having above normal rainfall since 2012 shows that our climate is getting wetter and our dry spells are intense but seemingly very short. This may change of course. As always time will tell. 

[kold weather]

 In Absence of True Seasons  While of course we are seasonal its also true that we could just as easily have 10c and rain in October, January or April. It becomes rarer as we head into late spring and summer but I've even seen July days basically be of similar calibre to the Feb just gone.

Most of the country broadly sits between 5-20c for about 9 months of the year. The far north and south/SE maybe a little less due to being warmer/colder.

[stainesbloke]

 CryoraptorA303 Europe is a very cloudy continent, unfortunately, away from southern parts (like Mallorca). The UK is one of the cloudiest parts of a cloudy continent. Seems to be getting worse, too. Plus the UK appears to be going down the toilet at the moment. All very depressing, but I’m lucky that I only work there and live in a much saner country. 
As a keen gardener and home-grower, it’d be nice for some sunshine interspersed with a bit of useful rain, not this awful long run of poor weather 

Edited March 13 by stainesbloke

[78/79]

 In Absence of True Seasons  I can remember when Blair repealed the licencing laws. He reckoned that we would adopt a continental cafe style culture. What he did'nt take into account was our cr,,p miserable weather/climate.   What a resounding success that has been.

[Methuselah]

 78/79 Not to mention watered-down vodka. . . It was the weather what done it! 

[WYorksWeather]

What will be interesting to see in the coming years is whether the CC-related projections of a greater seasonal variation in UK rainfall come off or not. What we should expect to see if the projections are right are much drier, hotter and sunnier summers, and milder and wetter winters.

Of course 2022 followed that sort of pattern, but 2023 really didn't. If we see a sudden flip to mostly drier than average conditions from April to September, that would put a bit more weight behind the idea, but of course this is only a longer term trend, so it'll be hard to prove one way or the other without a lot more data.

I think the only statistically significant trend in UK rainfall at the moment is for wetter winters. The drier summer trend is projected to be very significant, but we're not really seeing clear evidence of it yet.

Here are the long term EWP time series for spring, summer, autumn and winter:

You can see that it is only winter that has moved clearly out of the historic range.

[Wade]

 WYorksWeather Seems to me rainfall is increasing in every season, obviously much less so in summer but that's to be expected really with the air becoming warmer and warmer and as we all know warmer air holds more moisture so we have to adapt to being an ever increasing wet country.

[CryoraptorA303]

 WYorksWeather This is more or less the first obvious effect of climate change for us: the Mediterraneanisation of our winters. This meaning our winters become essentially extended autumn periods with virtually zero spells of significantly cold temperatures. This happening in an ENSO+/QBO- winter is imo very indicative of what the average "winter" can be expected to look like going forward. Even something like December 2022 is probably now a 1 in 5-10 year event at best. The 1930s, a period notorious for a lack of severe winters in Europe, still saw an event comparable or more extreme than December 2022 about once every two years. December 2022 was the first notable December cold at all since 2010, and the first overall since 2021, which itself was the first since 2018, which was the first since 2013, and so on. This winter having absolutely no notable cold at all is a terrifying prospect when the majority of years have less favourable background conditions than these. And some idiots who I serve still had the nerve to say idiotic things like "roll on summer" while we were experiencing average conditions in January. We never even had a winter!

Edited March 13 by CryoraptorA303

[CryoraptorA303]

1 hour ago, stainesbloke said:

Seems to be getting worse, too.

Actually, the warmer six months of the year are getting consistently sunnier with time, however the cooler six months of the year, the "wet season" if you will, is becoming hoplessly dull and extremely wet. The loss of any real winter from the nation in the last couple of decades and its replacement with an eternal autumn is causing serious mental distress. We are not acclimatised to winter being our wettest time of year and having near-constant temperatures from November to March, this is much more Iberian.

Edited March 13 by CryoraptorA303

[kold weather]

 WYorksWeather it's tricky because are we seeing less rain days but more extreme falls to make up the difference in summer months? Or is there no real trend.

i think its only by studying rainfall days, heavy rainfall days amd the ewp in totality will we get a clearer image of what is going on with summer rain pattern.

In terms on this winter enso, I honestly believe it just got too strong too rapidly. I've done studies in the past where the sweet spot on average in terms of AO/NAO tends to be in the low 1.x but there is a pretty sharp drop off once above 1.6c. Of course some months still overcome it such as Feb 83 but they typically come when the el nino is starting to collapse anyways. Clearly things this winter weren't as good as some predicted otherwise we'd have still gotten the synoptic pattern to hold for more than 5 days in January, even if its warmer than the past.

Still the lack of cold records is already noteworthy btw.

1 daily cold record since 2015. I think 63 warm ones since then...

Edited March 13 by kold weather