AderynCoch

I was in Ukraine the week before Christmas and didn't even get a night below zero never mind day. It got up to 16C when I was in Ľviv! At least it was sunny though - a few days later I was in Kiev and it was pretty much 11C and raining the whole time. My friend went to Kiev at the end of October and got snow. There's simply no justice sometimes.

I'm with you on this. I'm younger than you so I don't even remember the 84-87 period. As much as I loved 09/10 and November/December 2010, I so wish I could have experienced something like that growing up in the 90s (95-96 was the only winter I would describe as "memorable" from childhood).

I meant the UK. 26C is warm but not exceptional. To get 36C you need a tropical continental airmass.

That's thanks to tropical continental air earlier in the month. Tropical maritime air is nowhere near as warm in summer.

They're all here at the moment, along with an insane number of mosquitoes. You can't even go walking during the day without getting eaten alive. I was wearing repellant and still got bitten. A shame really because the weather today was glorious - 29C and cloudless. Some really nice views of Devín Castle and neighbouring parts of Austria.

22nd December 2009 was a good thundersnow event on the Wirral. There were plenty of bright pink flashes and loud thunderclaps.

Just had the weirdest thunderstorm I've ever seen. Torrential rain and loud crackles almost literally out of the blue, as in the clear blue sky. There was some bubbly convective cloud but not overhead, and the sun was shining throughout. Only time I've seen anything similar was when I experienced monsoonal downpours in Cairns, Australia which also seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Funnily enough I'm almost in the first situation right now. 33C on the bus wearing a mask. It's not actually that uncomfortable thanks to the air-conditioning. Last year I had to get on an old bus when it was 35C and it was horrible. And that was without a mask.

They haven't disappointed! It's been strobe lights and explosions for the past hour.

Low 20s isn't unusual but 25c+ is. The local weather station only goes back to December 2013, but the only October day to breach 25C is a very late 25.4C on 24th October last year. In 2018 summer pretty much lasted from April to October. Ironically the most disappointing spell was at the beginning of July when the UK was at the height of its heatwave.

Hottest day of the year so far here with a high of 35.3C. There was a 36C registered just a few miles away in Austria (Marchegg), and even a 37C in Vienna (though these are both rounded values). Summer has finally woken up this second half of July, with the earlier streaks of low-20s maxima and frequent non-thundery rainfall finally vanquished (knock on wood!). There are some meaty-looking storms approaching too this evening.

Just under 260 hours here so far. Need about 20 more hours to reach the monthly average, which we should manage. Wholly unremarkable but reading this thread I'm counting my blessings! July 2013 had nearly 400 hours.

On a slight tangent, we need to define phrases like "cool, damp and cloudy". From afar it seems to me that northwestern parts are having a much more "cool, damp and cloudy" July than normal. Come the end of the month it's the anomaly maps which will show who has truly got the crap end of the stick, not the absolute values. What a southerner might consider normal "sun and warmth" I would probably consider "cool, damp and cloudy" here. And what I consider "sunny and warm" here would undoubtedly be "cool, damp and cloudy" in somewhere like Ahvaz or In Salah (EDIT - or Basra for that matter!). I grew up in NW England, and while summers down south are better (from a warmie's perspective) the difference is nowhere near enough for me to have ever wanted to move there for weather reasons.

Huge mosquito problem here at the moment and it's been a largely disappointing summer so far. Only 8 days above 30C, which might please some people living in London or some other place with cool summers () but I expect better.

Disappointing. Characterised by frequent rainfall, blustery winds and cool nights. May deserves a special mention leading into the summer because it was dominated by frequent cold northwesterlies, washout days and a dearth of warmth (highest temperature all month in Liverpool was 17C). Even the brief heatwave at the beginning of July was a failure - just one big sheet of cloud. The Atlantic pretty much put a crimp on that summer. It was made all the more galling given that places like Germany had prolonged heat (it was a very hot summer in my current location).

Summer's finally in swing here after an iffy start. Unfortunately so are the mosquitoes following the wet June (we had nearly as much rain as January-May combined). Surprisingly June ended up average or even slightly above temperature-wise, and sunshine recovered to 240 hours, which is slightly below average here. April managed over 320 hours this year!

FINALLY passed 30C today for the first time this summer - ridiculously late for this location. Nothing wrong with the air quality either!

That chart pretty much sums up the past month or so. It's still raining here. I'm on 46mm since yesterday, nearly all of which has fallen in the last 12 hours. Pernek (only 10-15 miles from here) has had nearly 70mm in the same time frame.

Tell me about it. It stayed below 17C here today and we've had nearly an inch of rain (still going). A few days ago the nearby Morava River had already burst its banks; this will only make things worse. Since about the middle of May the weather has been very disappointing indeed. Cool and unsettled with only the occasional bit of genuine warmth here and there (rather than vice-versa, which is the norm here). May came in below-average and June will almost certainly end up the same. It's also looking increasingly likely that Bratislava will enter July without having recorded 30C so far this year - that is simply shocking for this location. We've gone from an almost non-existent winter to an almost non-existent summer - a terrible combination for those like me who like continental variation. What an annus horribilis 2020 has been so far. I dearly hope the second half of the year sees a vast improvement!

The former. Of course the forecast can change and a system previously thought to be staying well away from land can sometimes end up approaching.

It's a storm which doesn't affect land.

Bidston Observatory near Liverpool: August 1976 - 2.6mm September 1976 - 204.3mm

Yes, a May snowfall for example would at least be interesting but this is just nuisance cold. I suppose it's not so unusual in May even here but it does take the biscuit seeing headlines such as "Intense Arctic cold" (from Severe Weather Europe, not the Daily Express) after such a hopeless "winter" which delivered nothing remotely resembling Arctic cold.

I'm too young to remember the weather in 1989 and wasn't in the country for 2018 (of course I wasn't), so I can't actually recall a May which was consistently excellent. There have been plenty of Mays with warm/hot spells though. 2008 in particular had a superb first half but the second half was forgettable. I thought 2016 was pretty good as well. On the flip side of the coin it's good to see 2015 getting the opprobrium it so richly deserves, something which was surprisingly lacking at the time. A dire month. Also a special mention for May 2019 in Bratislava, which was as bad as any May I've experienced in the UK.

Certainly a very dry first half of spring here despite a wet first three days. 35.3mm since 1st March, 15.2mm since 4th March, 5.4mm since 14th March and 1.5mm since 22nd March. There's a bit of rain forecast for Sunday morning but nothing after that. I'm actually more interested in finding sunshine stats, which I imagine have been exceptional for the last month or so.