Arctic Hare

It's the rain that does it for me. Not (usually) more than showers of nuisance value, but having pretty much no day, not even one at a time and certainly not 2-3, being reliably dry all through. Makes it really hard to plan anything outdoors at all. I'd take a run of 19 °C dry days in August (even if there wasn't much sun, though I'd like some of that too) over a run of 27 °C days with thunderstorms every afternoon. Appreciate the storm fans in here might think differently about that last bit!

This is rapidly becoming one of those mid-late summers where I cross my fingers and hope that an ex-hurricane shakes things up in a few weeks' time and at least gets us out of the current rut. Of course, that can all go horribly wrong if things end up in the wrong place!

Sadly I think that's coming to pass. Currently 12.5 °C and it hasn't stopped raining since I woke up an hour and a bit ago. The radar looks dismal, even worse than the MetO forecast last night. Annoyingly I have to go out somewhere today (and for various reasons this can't be postponed/cancelled) so I'm expecting to be heavily reliant on not only an umbrella but even a coat. In the middle of July... I'm not sure what's happened to the moaning thread (has it been rolled into the general Summer chat one? I've been away from NW for a while) but if it was around I think today's weather would be very much on topic for that!

Only fair to acknowledge that today was much, much better with lots of sunshine from mid-morning onwards and blue skies as I type. Still not that hot in pure temperature terms - max 19.7 °C - but with June sun strength it still feels very warm.

Yeah, a really disappointing Tuesday here as well. Barely into the teens and (barring a couple of extremely brief hazy breaks) zero sunshine.

A very solid day today. Still not that warm, but 20.8 °C with a reasonable amount of sunshine at times is more than okay for me. Ideally I'd have liked slightly less cloud in the afternoon, but if that's the worst thing I have to complain about, things aren't too bad!

I think that's probably got a lot to do with it. I'm feeling the "stuck in a rut" thing more and more as well. For whatever reasons, and I appreciate this isn't the thread for deep dives into climate change so I won't try, the classic "four seasons in one day" British weather seems to be becoming significantly less common. Hence when it rains, it rains more and for longer (= flooding) and when it's hot and dry, it's hot and dry for longer (= droughts/wildfires). We seem to see less in the way of "classic" spring weather now too, with sharp showers between spells of warm sunshine. If it's a gloomy, cold, drizzly day but tomorrow is likely to be bright and breezy, that's much easier to deal with (for me anyway) than a forecast that's just dull, dull, dull, dull for a week or more non-stop.

Fell just short of 20 °C again today: 19.4 °C, to go with the two successive 19.9s I had a few days ago. Still a very pleasant day so no complaints, but the lack of even a single day in Bewdley reaching 22 °C is becoming increasingly notable (current max here 21.5 °C) by this point in May.

Sat outside the pub in short sleeves with a glass and a bowl of ice cream and was very comfortable. Even in the high teens, being in the sun and out of the wind makes it really nice. Good to see lots of other customers too - Bewdley is a tourist town and we need good weather in the season. Having this on a Saturday helps no end!

Very nice weather today. Pretty much blue skies from the word go. For a fully sunny day in the second half of May it's not especially warm -- 17 °C and a noticeable breeze means sitting in a shady outdoor spot for lunch really does feel a little on the cool side. But compared with a lot of what we've had this spring, it's on another planet. I'll take this!

A generally good day today. A new 2023 high (21.5 °C) and really feeling very warm when the sun was out, as long as I was out of the wind. A bit too much gloom later on for my liking - that perennial late afternoon problem. But a far cry from the dross of a couple of weeks ago, so I won't complain too much!

Just been outside. It was raining! Looking at the radar, there's a little blob of it just over my area, then nothing for miles. Only light rain, but you have to laugh. Hopefully the sun will be back shortly.

Cheers to you and Daniel*. Genuinely surprised, had it in my head that 1700-1800 was about the limit for the UK. Definitely don't get 1900+ in the vast bulk of the UK, but fair enough, holding my hands up I was wrong.

I wouldn't mind Vancouver's sunshine hours, though. The Wiki article gives the station at Vancouver Intl Airport 1,937.5 hours. Not stellar by North American standards, but even so nowhere in the UK gets close to that. As for here, as expected 21.1 °C (pretty much dead on 70 °F) was my maximum. Quite gloomy now, just starting to think about putting the lamp on.

Finally got my first 20 °C of the year today. High so far (and likely to remain so) is 21.1 °C. The earlier sunshine has pretty much gone now and the breeze is starting to pick up a little. Still fine for sitting in the garden in sheltered parts, though. Nothing special for mid-May, but vastly better than most of this spring.

Very decent day today. Finally broke 20 °C for the first time in 2023, a reasonable amount of hazy sunshine (though that's now gone) and pleasantly light winds. Yesterday afternoon and today have made one and a half nice days in a row, which may be a record for this year so far!

To be fair the afternoon was very decent here. Plenty of sunshine and felt reasonably warm. Just a shame the morning was hopeless. Also a shame that we don't seem to be able to get more than one day at a time of this.

Absolutely pathetic here. I'm in Worcester right now and it's freezing cold and completely overcast. No thermometer around, but I'd be surprised if it was much above 10 °C. The Met Office forecast has as usual been way too optimistic about the sun breaking through. (Direct quote: "Any cloud in the east breaking up through the early morning...") This happens again and again and again, as anyone who lives here could tell them, yet this same forecast error keeps on happening. And no, it doesn't happen just as much in the other direction. I actually kept records once and it wasn't even close, maybe three times as common in this direction. It's a common, systemic error that never seems to be addressed. Grump. Edit: I do expect sunshine eventually, a mere four or so hours after originally forecast, so I expect I'll cheer up a bit then!

Yeah, for some of us here in the "groan group" (hi there, model thread) there really is good reason. Being honest, for me in Worcestershire it's probably just a mediocre-to-poor spring so far, well below average in terms of feel but not outright exceptional. I might be open to the charge of whining a little more than I really ought to. But for somewhere like Kent, as you say, this season is on track to be the wettest ever. I think when something like that happens it doesn't ring true when people try to make out the complaints are overdone. It's kind of like reacting to people complaining about 40 °C last summer with "It's July, why are you complaining it's hot?"

When all is said and done, I suspect sunshine will be the key for many in how they feel about this spring. If May continues the pattern of having far more sun in the north than the south, probably those further south will feel it's been a dire spring and those further north will feel it was average/OK. By this time of year if the sun comes out it instantly feels pretty warm even if the thermometer is only reading 16 °C. Sunday was a good example here - didn't make it to 20, but the large amount of sunshine almost all day meant I was comfortable sitting in the garden with a book at 7pm in a T-shirt. That kind of thing has been unthinkable almost all of this spring, when usually there are at least a few days by the second half of April when it's possible. It's just been too cold and gloomy with all the cloud.

Certainly cold! Rain's almost stopped now and the temp has stablised in the mid-12s.

Temp has gone from 18.4 °C to 14.2 °C in the last few minutes and still dropping; it's raining now. Thunder has suddenly stopped, though!

Plenty of rumbles to my south-west in Bewdley, approaching fairly fast. Now gone quite dark, though not like that Oldbury pic! Some fairly lively rain imminent I would say.

Just starting to wonder whether I may go through the whole spring without a 20 °C. Highest so far is 19.5 °C and the outlook right now doesn't exactly give much hope for warm weather. There's never been a spring (in modern times at least) without an official 20 °C in the whole UK as far as I know, but quite possible the mark could be reached in London and not here. It's not as bad a spring here as 2012 was a summer, if you see what I mean, but it is very very meh and uninspiring. Even mediocre springs usually have the odd period of 3-4 days of reasonably settled weather, yet it's been hard to get more than one dry day in a row this time.

Humidity is the big deal for me. In July's extreme heat last year, I found 35 °C surprisingly okay-ish, since on the first day at least humidity was very low. I remember being interested to walk across town and not be drenched in sweat at the end of it, which I certainly would be in the conditions we usually have in these parts when it's 30+. Similarly, trying to sleep in a sticky August 16 °C is something I find very uncomfortable. I'm not sleeping 24 hours a day of course and so in the daytime I'd be pretty unhappy if it never got above 16 °C in high summer! My absolute summer ideal is maybe mid-20s with sunshine and dry air, so I get a lovely, warm, non-sticky day and nights down at around 10 °C to make it easy to sleep.