Worryingly Wet & Worryingly Sunless

[reef]

 Weather-history Those figures have to be suspect? Durham only had 1456.9 hours in 1895.

[reef]

 Daniel* It'll be much higher for sure. In my own figures 1991-2020 is 1599 hours and 1994-2023 is already 1629 hours.

The remaining years 1994-2000 which will drop off only average 1542 hours. So unless the next 7 years average 57 hours below the current average then the 2001-2030 value will be even higher.

[CryoraptorA303]

 reef To be completely fair, Durham is on the other side of the Pennines, so a strong easterly wind all year could explain such a disparity, although it's an absolutely ridiculous disparity.

However, this would be an absolutely exceptional scenario, and we should be able to see such high sunshine totals replicated in other northwestern stations. I doubt that it's anywhere near accurate and was probably massively overinflated for competitive and commercial reasons.

It'd be worth checking out western Scotland totals, they would see an even more insanely high figure for their location if such a scenario actually occured.

Edited March 17 by CryoraptorA303

[Daniel*]

4 minutes ago, reef said:

It'll be much higher for sure. In my own figures 1991-2020 is 1599 hours and 1994-2023 is already 1629 hours.

I was speaking more for summer. Maybe for your own, and well your location is not particularly representative. 1990s were sunniest decade in London.

[CryoraptorA303]

Side note: The sun has actually come out here Call the national news!

[reef]

 Daniel* It might surprise you, but the 1991-2000 summers average 637.5 hours - just 9 hours more than the 1991-2020 figure at Heathrow. The 90s had good summers but a few which will drop off were sub-600 hours (1991, 1992, 1997 and 2000)

Essentially, as long as 2021-2030 average more than 637.5 hours it will rise on the next 30 year mean.

[Weather-history]

 CryoraptorA303

It has to be said that Morecambe is pretty sheltered from anything between north and east on the compass, so  the January and February figures may not that far off. 

Castletown on Isle of Man recorded 97.1hrs that February, seen a report of 99hrs at some location in Yorkshire 

 

Edited March 17 by Weather-history

[MP-R]

 CryoraptorA303 That's a very interesting point, and would suit our unique situation on this planet.

[Scorcher]

 Daniel* 90s summers weren't uniformly sunny by any means. There were a few dull ones in there- notably 1993 and 1998.

I think the trend is more recent for dullness so I'd be surprised if the longer term average is lower than the previous one. 

[raz.org.rain]

No signs of any extended sunlight next week but the temperatures are mostly double digits, mid to low teens. Monday and Tuesday look mostly dry, and the rest of the week has chances of rain. A very dull outlook and sticking to the theme of March so far; unexceptional.

[raz.org.rain]

21 hours ago, raz.org.rain said:

as far as I'm aware, the predicted trend for the jet stream is for it to be pushed northwards in response to climate change, there's a study for it that I've posted

Here's an article discussing the theory. The jet stream is expected to progress northwards in response to CC, this would see harsher drought conditions in Europe - particularly southern Europe. For context, when the jet stream has seen dramatic shifts in recent times, this has resulted in harsh drought and hotter conditions for our shores too (2018 was an example of this I believe).

[B87]

 reef London summers since the end of the 91-20 period:

2021: 481.2 hours

2022: 754.1 hours

2023: 646.7 hours

3 year average of 627.3 hours, but that includes the dullest summer in the entire record.

Edited March 17 by B87

[Met.]

Seeing some sun this afternoon for the first time since last September. The indoor temperature even reached 17°C without the heating on.

[Daniel*]

48 minutes ago, Scorcher said:

There were a few dull ones in there- notably 1993 and 1998

Perhaps more mixed further north at Heathrow with 1991-2020 normals in brackets. 1998 the cloudiest summer of 1990s still above 600 sunshine hours! 
 

1993:

June 224.2 (208)

July 174.6 (218) 

August 219.4 (202)

Total: 618.2 hours  

1998:

June 158.4 (208)

July 184.6 (218)

August 262.6 (202)

Total: 605 hours 

Edited March 17 by Daniel*

[LetItSnow!]

5 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

20 years ago, our climate was much better

Isn't our climate mostly unchanged since 20 years ago though? The biggest difference is we didn't have heat spikes then, but many 2000s summers were indifferent to poor with a couple good ones in the mix and the winters were still mostly mild with infrequent snow until a brief window of snowier weather from 2008 to 2013. Even the annual C.E.T. interestingly remained quite static until 2022 and 2023 which we're still waiting to see if it's the new normal or whether it will drop to the 10.2-10.7C window for the next 5-10 years. To me it feels like it's just a slightly warmer and quite wetter version of what we had. I think the 1990s was just a decade in which was natural variation enhanced by climate change for its unusual frequency of better summers which balanced the unusual frequency of poor summers in the 1980s. It will be interesting to see natural variability play out albeit with the elephant in the room a constant driver.

[kold weather]

 B87 really does show how dreadful 2021 was down here. Id guess something like 100-125hrs came within the first 10 days of June which were actually pretty decent.

So we probably only managed 350hrs for the whole rest of summer, which would be pretty meh total even for spring!

[CryoraptorA303]

 LetItSnow! Agreed, there's a lot of rose-tinted goggles being used here. The stats show that average sunshine has been steadily increasing since 1950.

It's mostly just the same natural variation but with climate change ramping up the extremes. E.g. every four years or so we get a warm and dry summer but now that's being turned into a record hot summer each time it happens. Every seven or so years we get a really mild and wet summer which is now being turned stormy and humid. And 2019 is just, I have no idea what that was to be honest.

We will probably see things calm down a little over the next few years as the impact from El Nino wears off, but I wouldn't expect anything particularly cool. The 2007-2012 aberration was exactly that, a blip in the road of otherwise warming conditions. I think it's been connected to changes in the AO which were similar to what caused the very cold spells in the 60s, so that's around a 50 year return period. Over the last ~15 years we have mostly had continuous La Ninas with the occasional big El Nino interrupting, so as bad as it looks now, this is just the start in terms of global temps. Eventually La Nina will give up for a decade and we will see multiple El Nino-Neutral episodes in fairly quick succession, and the proverbial will really hit the fan with no cooling mechanism attempting to temper things. This is probably what really kicked climate change off starting from the 90s, and again in the early 2000s.

The milder summers are probably starting to seem a lot worse as the colder winters that would usually happen after them have been surgically removed and replaced with more mildness, giving the impression of a relatively continuous temperature gradient. I imagine that December 2022 is now our probable ceiling with the occasional Dec 2022 happening every 5-10 years, and something on the scale of 09/10 being multidecadal. There's no point even mentioning December 2010 to be honest, we'll never see anything as cold as that again.

[Summer8906]

 CryoraptorA303 lol, even spring 2020 was slightly less sunny along part of the south coast though can't say I noticed it.

Interesting that the coastal area and immediate inland area from Portsmouth to Selsey Bill (a little east of me) seems to be repeatedly a "hotspot" for dullness. Wonder what's causing that? If anything I'd expect that to be slightly sunnier with a slight rain-shadow from the IoW that other parts of the coast don't have.

Edited March 17 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

 reef Could be though because 1992 and 1993 were quite dull years, amongst the dullest of the 90s I suspect (see also 1998) - while 2022 was sunny (though 2023 was dull).

Edited March 17 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! 20 years ago was the early 00s though, so I'm not really thinking of the 00s as a whole but rather the earlier part of the decade ending in perhaps 2006, and including the end of the 90s. In that period, for summers we had the rather cloudy but benign and not excessively humid 2000, the variable but often sunny 2001, the notably good 2003, the generally good 2005 and the notably good 2006. The winters, while not great, seemed to be a little more predisposed to cold than now.

There were poor periods, true, but the climate as a whole seemed better perhaps because we rarely got stuck in prolonged wet ruts. Only autumn/winter 2000/1 stands out as notably wet in that period.

Edited March 17 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

3 hours ago, raz.org.rain said:

No signs of any extended sunlight next week but the temperatures are mostly double digits, mid to low teens. Monday and Tuesday look mostly dry, and the rest of the week has chances of rain. A very dull outlook and sticking to the theme of March so far; unexceptional.

Arguably this month is exceptional though, but for all the wrong reasons. Likely to be exceptionally wet, very mild (though probably not record breaking) and, aside from the first 8 days, very dull.

A slightly milder version of 2023 and could well be one of the four wettest since the war, and three wettest since 1950.

[Summer8906]

6 hours ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

Even without this logic, I would argue that flipping ENSO is something worth trying, as nothing else seems to be sending the wet spell on its way. We might as well take our chances with a global regime flip at this point.

 kold weather I have thought about that, however despite this problem the vast majority of months are still showing obvious clustering with pre-21st century months. I haven't really seen something like this March before in the time I've been studying inter-annual relations.

On the topic of the warm Atlantic, perhaps the upcoming northerly spell could help to cool it somewhat. It is in desperate need of cooling if we want the Atlantic forcing to weaken.

 

Do you see the change of season alone, with stronger insolation and weaker polar vortex, might change the pattern alone? Often spring, at some point, sees a definite pattern change compared to the preceding winter.

Edited March 17 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

39 minutes ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

The milder summers are probably starting to seem a lot worse as the colder winters that would usually happen after them have been surgically removed and replaced with more mildness, giving the impression of a relatively continuous temperature gradient. I imagine that December 2022 is now our probable ceiling with the occasional Dec 2022 happening every 5-10 years, and something on the scale of 09/10 being multidecadal. There's no point even mentioning December 2010 to be honest, we'll never see anything as cold as that again.

Can you be sure though? Dec 2010 was very recent indeed in the scheme of things and perhaps 22 years after the effects of climate change really started kicking in (I always think of Dec 1988 as the date it all seemed to change).

Remember also that even in the past 10-odd years, we've had March 2013 and the 2018 "Beast from the East". The former was historically cold while the latter was merely a return to normal-for-the-80s but even still, it shows that these spells can still happen.

I'd say the weather seems to have been particularly stuck in an extreme mild rut since around September 2021. In that time (IIRC) Dec 2022 has been literally the only month to not be above average.

But aside from most of the first 8 months of 2022 and 6 weeks in May-June last year, it's also been a very dull and damp period since Sep 2021. It also appears to have been very anomalously southwesterly in that period, though from Jan-Aug 2022 this was accompanied by higher pressure so much drier. July 2023 onwards has been particularly bad in this respect though.

Edited March 17 by Summer8906

[WYorksWeather]

Saw a bit of sun today - an absolutely terrible morning and lunchtime gave way to a very mild and sunny afternoon. Not quite warm yet though.

[baddie]

Tommorow looks pleasing. Tuesday meh. Wednesday and Thursday terrible. Friday meh. Saturday bad. Perhaps decent from next Sunday onwards?????