Worryingly Wet & Worryingly Sunless

[Summer8906]

 danm Would be interesting to see 1991-2020 compared with 1981-2010 or 1971-2000. I can remember the whole of 81-10, and about 23 years of 71-00.

At a guess 71-00 and 81-10 represented peak sunshine, as both include the sunny 90s but miss out the duller (IMX) 10s.

I'd also guess that both were drier than 91-20, as the 80s weren't overly wet and the 70s (which I only partly remember) was allegedly a dry decade.

Edited March 19 by Summer8906

[Weather-history]

Has anyone else noticed that the champions of that "worryingly dry" thread have been conspicuous by their absence in this thread? 

 

[CryoraptorA303]

22 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

Regarding rainfall for the remainder of the month - what do you make of some of the very cyclonic model runs today though? Some of them next week seem to look very wet indeed, wetter even than February or March thus far - particularly as we approach Easter.

I pray that they're wrong. This would just be a disaster.

[CryoraptorA303]

 raz.org.rain Well, to be fair, ~20°C is around the average summer temp for much of the UK (a bit low in the SE quadrant), but it's hardly all that exceptional anymore to get the odd 20°C day in March or early April. It seems to happen about every other year now.

The sensationalist wording doesn't help its case though. British press is to generally be avoided for almost everything.

Edited March 19 by CryoraptorA303

[Metwatch]

Another day where showers form and keep things wet this afternoon, it's just getting silly now. The satellite loop below says it all. Next week looks to be getting worse.

6 hours ago, danm said:

Average total annual rainfall between the two periods:

Coventry rainfall annual averages:

61-90: 660.9mm

71-00: 666.1mm

81-10: 700.1mm

91-20: 698.3mm

Interesting it's stayed the same for the last 2 averages, but I think for when the 2001-30 average comes out, there will be an increase depending on how wet the coming years are. Church lawford east of here, has stayed similar all 4 averages. Coleshill closer to B'ham has gotten a little drier. Overall for Midlands and England south regions, there is a steady increase by like 10-20mm for every decadal average which isn't an overly dramatic rise but still clear to see.

Edited March 19 by Metwatch

[LetItSnow!]

 danm  danm  danm

Increase in rain days and sunshine isn't neccesarily that surprising. Wet winters aren't always dull, as the winter of 2013/2014 was actually sunny overall I think. Westerly winters tend to be sunny unless they have an excess of south-westerly influences like December and February just gone. The days where we would have once seen easterly winds dominate are now just more westerlies with more rain days but also with sunshine and showers. As for the summer, unless we see the northward expansion of the Hadley Cell promote more high pressure dominated summers, I expect the summer rainfall pattern to remain relatively static/slightly increase as westerly summer patterns will just hold more moisture mixed with natural variability. It makes sense that we've seen a lot of the short dry spells in recent times occur in the spring as it's the time when high pressure is most likely to dominate as the Atlantic becomes less powered up. "Bottled up synoptics" perhaps. All makes sense with the data shown to me at least.

[danm]

 Summer8906 each 30 year rolling period has got slightly wetter and quite a bit sunnier. For the sunshine part of, particular over the 91-20 period. 

[CryoraptorA303]

18 minutes ago, Metwatch said:

Next week looks to be getting worse.

I seriously hope not.

[danm]

 LetItSnow! Funnily enough, when breaking down the improved sunshine totals between 1961 and 2020, there are some regional differences. Whereas with rainfall, pretty much everywhere has got a little wetter over that period, with sunshine it's not uniform across the year. 

Winter - sunshine totals seem to have improved almost universally, except perhaps the NW of Scotland (see below):

 

Summer - across the south and SE, sunshine totals have improved, but in some north and NW'ern areas, they haven't or have even got worse, particularly Scotland, northern Ireland and higher parts of N England and higher parts of N Wales:

[LetItSnow!]

 danm That does make sense also. Increased heat domes to our south meaning the south of England sees more influence of hot and dry weather, but also the Atlantic beefing up and carrying more cloud and rain means Scotland suffering the brunt of it. August 2020 typified this pattern with very hot and dry weather in the south while the north missed out entirely and then it turned very wet everywhere; the month wasn't even warm in Scotland I think. I'd even expect more months like July 2023 except cooler (because the warm SSTs gave a higher C.E.T. than would have occured even a year or two earlier imo) when the trough becomes more dominant.

It's just a thought, but I did propose the idea that perhaps the future isn't one solid shift to one or the other, and that, particularly for our summers, we will probably continue to see both conditions but with more intensity. Very hot summers mixed with very wet, cloudy summers with mild minima keeping the C.E.T. up. Just a warmer and wetter version of natural variability that this country sees. But of course, just an idea and we don't know what will happen in say 100 years time. I do feel like the picturesque English countryside of green fields and flowers isn't going anywhere anytime soon though.

Edited March 19 by LetItSnow!

[Metwatch]

 danm

Have you got a link to all those 30 year average maps for sunshine, rainfall, temperature etc, can't seem to find them/

Thanks! Didn't even see on the site when looking at station averages!

Edited March 19 by Metwatch

[danm]

 Metwatch Here: 

Heathrow (Greater London) UK climate averages

WWW.METOFFICE.GOV.UK

---

Heathrow UK climate averages

 

You can toggle between tables, graphs and maps and obviously change the location for the tables and graphs to drill in on one place. The maps tabs show it UK wide. Then toggle between the time periods. 

[SunSean]

Wonder if that crappy SSW we had recently has had a hand in cementing this further prolonged wet & overcast horse manure? 

Hands down the most soul destroying & mind numbingly boring weather pattern I've ever experienced, with not a whiff of ending even in the next 2 weeks- if anything, it gets worse (if that were even possible)

Even going Tenerife for 4 days hasn't stopped me just looking at this unrelenting pattern and just shaking my head in disbelief. 

I would honestly rather crawl through a mile long tunnel of barbed wire than endure another month of this utter garbage.

April, don't even think about producing anymore of this absolute haemorrhoid inducing, eye gouging, teeth splitting cack of an excuse for "weather".

Oh if only there wasn't a swear filter on here! Lol.

[SummerShower]

In all honesty this February and March combined has got to be the dullest on record.  At least when we had an equally dull March last year, February wasn't too bad.

[CryoraptorA303]

 SummerShower I would sell my kidneys for an April equivalent of February 2023 at this point to be honest. Warm by day but not overly warm at night and very dry. Exactly what we need right now

[baddie]

 CryoraptorA303 Would love an April version of Feb 2023. I would even have a May/June version of March/April 2023 as long as it leads onto a July/August version of May/June 2023
 

 Summer8906 I wonder how early spring flowering would end if we had an anti-2013 (January to May)

Edited March 19 by baddie

[CryoraptorA303]

Not a single entry further south than Pershore today. London as low as 13°C, normally at least St James's Park or Heathrow would make it to the list. Also very weird to be seeing places like Donna Nook and Bridlington on the list at this time of year, normally you'd expect their potential to be giganerfed by the North Sea. What an unusual day for climatology. How much warmer than average is the North Sea at the moment? It must be really warm in comparison to March averages if it's not moderating at all. No level of strong westerlies should be able to overcome it in March at Donna f**king Nook. This is the same station that barely records 20°C even if the rest of Lincolnshire is at 30+°C unless the wind is aimed directly at it and it's mid-July or later.

Clearly the potential is there for high temperatures. Bear in mind these temps are 5-7°C above average for these locations and we've been running at similar daytime anomalies for most of the month. The dullness and humidity is heavily suppressing it. It doesn't help that the SE is apparently losing control of its climate and dumping it on the Midlands, taking on the SW's climate instead.

Once the wet spell finally gives up and we see heights above us, temperatures will rise very quickly at this rate.

Edited March 19 by CryoraptorA303

[CryoraptorA303]

7 minutes ago, baddie said:

I wonder how early spring flowering would end if we had an anti-2013 (January to May)

The trees would probably be blooming by mid-February as they did in 2022 here and the daff season would already be over by mid-March. Lilies would probably be out by April time as well. Grass would have an absolute field day (pun intended) with the hugely extended warm season assuming summer 2013 continues as planned but I can't see other more seasonally dependent flora doing particularly well with the extremely premature season and the dryness that'd come with an anti-2013 up to May (I'm pretty sure it was wet all the way through, if a bit showery more than truly wet from April).

If you want to go for maximum damage then I'd suggest the anti-2013 until May, then have 2022 take over. That would be one hell of a disaster.

Edited March 19 by CryoraptorA303

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 danm That's interesting re the stats about a bit wetter but also sunnier.

I'm curious as to how those changes are disappeared throughout the different months. 

I imagine that certain months like September and May are undoubtedly bumping up the annual average sunshine stats nowadays, but I wouldn't be surprised if Winter is now on average wetter, as it seems to be strongly correlated with mildness (which our winters are now also)

[baddie]

 In Absence of True Seasons We havent had a really sunny September since 2003 (Above 140% of average), most have been average or marginally above. As for May, the only really sunny ones were in the last few years (2018, 2020 and 2023 in Western areas), and before 2018, most were average or a little below. April is the only one really bringing annual totals up, and January is often lifting our winters totals too (2024 the obvious example, and 2022)

Edited March 19 by baddie

[danm]

 In Absence of True Seasons looking at the Heathrow stats, the month with the biggest increase in sunshine between ‘61-90 and ‘91-20 is April. It averaged 147 hours previously and now averages 176 hours. All other months have increased sunshine too but seemingly at smaller amounts than April. 

[Scorcher]

 CryoraptorA303 Those higher temps across the Midlands and north are purely due to sunshine. We're at the time of year now where sunshine makes all the difference to temperatures. The North Sea has far less of an influence if the breeze is offshore from the south west or southerly for those places on or close to the east coast.

[Scorcher]

We're up to 49 hours for the month here now. Below average but not exceptionally so with a third of the month still to come. The problem is we may not add to that figure much over the next few days.

[CryoraptorA303]

No chance of 20°C today now unless the Sun comes out and a big area has completely clear skies all day from about 11am, which isn't going to happen.

I could still see the montly max of 18.1°C so far being slightly exceeded though as the Sun is definitely trying to come out here. If it comes out in the right area for long enough then ~18.5°C could be seen in the right area.

If the mid-terms are to be believed then this will be the last chance to set a maximum, leaving us with a slightly below average max for 2003-2023 which is around 19°C. Despite that this March will still be at least the 30th warmest on record.

As the very end of the month is still largely out of range for reliable forecasting, it would be a mistake to rule out a late warm day that sees 19°C or so. I'm not sure about 20°C for this March now though, we're probably looking at April. I think 20°C will be well exceeded this April though.

[CryoraptorA303]

 Scorcher I'm aware, as I said the SE has mostly taken on the SW's climate in the last month and the central plains are now getting the warmest and, uh... "driest" weather.

The central-northern east coast getting this high in March is a little unusual still though, it must've been a super direct wind and the North Sea must be way warmer than average for the time of year. Either that or we're dealing with air so warm that in sunny and dry conditions we'd be seeing an idiotically warm March with about ten consecutive days above 23-24°C or even more.