Richard2901

My ratings (/10) for recent summers 2006: 5 (Rotten August cancelled out very good July and June was mediocre)2007: 0 (Unrelentingly awful apart from one week in August)2008: 3 (June and July were fairly average, August terrible)2009: 4 (Wet and unsettled but no protracted dull spells)2010: 4 (A good settled period in June/July but mostly poor)2011: 1 (Very cool, dull and wet except for a brief hot spell at the start of June)2012: 0 (The worst summer since at least 1879; relentlessly cool, dull and wet)2013: 7 (Similar to 2006 only July not as good but August much better) I'm not optimistic about this summer at all given the unbelievably wretched synoptics which have prevailed so far this year and show no sign of relenting. Summer 2013 accrued a 70-hour sunshine surplus which did little to reduce the 560-hour deficit which built up between 2007 and 2012. We would need every summer to be like last year up until 2020 for that to happen. Whilst the long run without a notably dull May has been broken this year the current model output suggests the equally long run without a notably sunny June looks set to continue so depressingly the deficit just looks like growing larger again. My ideal summer would consist of June 1940, July 1955 and August 1947. Far better summer months than any in my lifetime. It would pretty much be the antithesis of summer 2012.

Not been a good spring at all. Vile and revolting. March was acceptable from an outdoors point of view but devoid of anything of meteorological interest. April and May truly shocking on both counts. The only weekend days during these rancid months to bring any sort of decent weather were 12th April, 19th April, 20th April and 3rd May. Out of that lot 19th/20th April - the Easter weekend - was the only weekend to manage above average sunshine and here I am suffering yet another abomination of a weekend. Grey, overcast and cool today with tomorrow looking a washout. To get this week in week out in the months that are supposed to bring the best weather is beyond depressing and a major impediment to having any quality of life. Not one day in the past week has even managed 6 hours of sun and I've only just managed to scrape 100 hours sunshine for this wretched May. Most of Southern Scotland and Northern Ireland well short of even attaining that. It will be a record dull May there. Overall it will be the dullest spring here since 1998 and while rainfall has not been high that is down to endless drizzle and low daily totals. Just 6 dry days this month and could well rain every day yet which would equal the most rain days on record for May. We have not had any sort of settled spell during spring. The longest dry spell this year is just 5 days and that was recorded in January - the second wettest on record with 25 rain days. It takes a really lousy spring not to be able to beat that. I can't even recall Spring 1993 which was far wetter and duller feeling as miserable and depressing as this. It just feels as bad as the summers of 2007, 2011 and 2012 when the worst weather is always at the weekend and you get practically no opportunity to do anything outdoors.

Back from a trip to a chilly autumnal Prague to endure yet another dire weekend ruined by fronts delivering cloudy garbage to the whole of Scotland instead of just the NW and Northern Isles as happened before 1998. Rotten Spring so far that just keeps getting worse with weekend after weekend of write-off dross. This will be the 5th weekend out of 8 with less than 5 hours sun in total, a period over which the average should range from 8-13 hours. Incredulously the Easter Weekend has been the only sunny and dry weekend of the whole lousy year so far. Depressingly, there continues to be no end in sight to the exceptionally revolting synoptics which have prevailed, since the end of September, giving a continuous autumn. Average pressure for the first 4 months of 2014 was over 2.5mb lower than in any other year of the past 150 years and May is on track to further increase this differential. Sunshine here only 84.1 hours or 79% of average for the first 17 days of May and only 6 dry days. With spectacularly awful charts like the one posted above, alongside the oxymoron “nice SE-lyâ€, this can only got worse and it’s looking highly likely that this will end up as the dullest May since 1993 and a good chance of being only the third in 40 years, along with 1983 and 1993, to record fewer than 150 hours of sun. In Southern Scotland it must be headed for the worst May on record with Prestwick, Edinburgh and Glasgow all having shockingly poor and disgusting sunshine totals of just 35-55 hours so far when monthly averages are 180-200 hours. The latest horror month in an era where record-breakingly awful months occur with alarming regularity and are never balanced out with equivalent months from the good end of the spectrum

An end to the utterly revolting cyclonic south easterly synoptics which have prevailed for almost 8 months now

Detestable output for the next week or so and more concerning for me I'm off to Prague next week and looks little better there. Each model run makes a repeat of the ridiculously cloudy, cool and wet summer-2012 garbage I got in Slovakia last May seem more and more likely. It will be the last holiday I ever take north of 45degrees N that's for sure. The whole of Europe away from the Med has an absolutely stinking awful vile, hateful cloud filled abomination of a climate Usually there has been a warm spell in Central Europe by now but it looks like they are suffering the same tepid temperatures and lack of extremes as here. Hasn't got above 21C in Prague yet this year and unfortunately little chance of me seeing it get even that high next week. April 2013 saw 26C reached and April 2012 28C with most years seeing at least 24C. This years weather is truly pathetic

April has been another awful month dominated by horrible south easterly winds bringing a continuation of the detested pattern of the last 7 months i.e. ridiculously mild nights and subdued daytime maxima with an extreme lack of both warmth and cold Both my location and Aviemore average a mean max of 10.9C in April. However this year the excessive amount of SE'ly winds has given Aviemore a mean max 3C above average at 13.9C, with an impressive monthly max of 22.0C, whereas here the mean max has been a near average 11.3C with an absolutely pathetic monthly max of 15.8C. It's the first time since the 1970s that three successive Aprils have failed to hit 17C. Here my mean min was 1.9C above average at 5.4C resulting in one of the lowest average diurnal ranges on record for April. Almost the same mean min as 2007 and 2011 but with maxima over 3C lower. Even the clearer spell mid-month failed to produce much in the way of cold nights with just one lame frost of -0.1C. The first week and last 9 days have been up there with the most revolting spring spells I've experienced and really only the outstandingly sunny easter weekend and another couple of unusually clear and sunny days saved this month from being as bad as April 2012 - the dullest since 1941. These 6 days alone accounted for over half the sunshine total of a month otherwise full of gloomy miserable days, featureless stratus, fog and drizzle. 7 days with no sunshine at all which is even more than in April 2012. It's been just like the winter sunshine pattern rather than the mix of cumulus, sunny spells, sun/showers etc we should be getting at this time of year. Really find it difficult to put into words just how much I have despised the synoptics of the past 7 months which have given an extreme lack of everything that could be considered desirable and an abundance of everything I detest the most

Yes, it's been the same as winter with no warmth at all really. Mean max here was an average 11C though mean min was 2C above average. 17-18C is what you'd expect for the warmest day of the month here but it didn't even manage 16C this month. It's now 4 out of 6 Aprils I've recorded a below average monthly maximum, 2012 exceptionally so, and it's the first time since the very cool April's of the 1970s that three successive April's have failed to reach 17C. Looking around the country many places have failed to reach 18C this month which is very poor. Several places in SW England with very low monthly maximum's for April: Liscombe: 15.1CCamborne: 14.5CCardinham: 15.5CDunkeswell: 15.9CLyneham: 16.9C A month to forget as far as I'm concerned. Last April was better.

The most snowless winter in over 150 years of records for the Aberdeen area with just one dusting on 19th November here in the outskirts. The majority of the city probably had no days with snow lying at 9am. Days with snow lying and max depth: 2004/05: 16 (5cm)2005/06: 22 (26cm)2006/07: 8 (2cm)2007/08: 7 (5cm)2008/09: 21 (16cm)2009/10: 43 (19cm)2010/11: 34 (28cm)2011/12: 6 (6cm)2012/13: 33 (15cm)2013/14: 1 (1cm) The absence of frost has been just as shocking with an absolute low of -2.5C and a lower frost duration for Autumn/Winter/Spring combined (110.1hrs) than my previous record low for winter alone (141.1hrs for 2007/08). Total frost duration: 2005/06: 399.7hrs2006/07: 175.8hrs2007/08: 222.6hrs2008/09: 383.1hrs2009/10: 664.8hrs2010/11: 612.9hrs2011/12: 217.5hrs2012/13: 445.0hrs2013/14: 110.1hrs No month had as many frosts as April 2013 with minima consistently 1.5-2C above average since October except in November which had the coldest minima but still over 2C. Mean Minima: Oct: 7.6 (+1.6)Nov: 2.2 (-1.1)Dec: 3.7 (+2.5)Jan: 2.6 (+1.4)Feb: 2.7 (+1.7)Mar: 3.9 (+1.9)April: 5.2 (+2.1 to 13th) Northerlies would have been far better than what we’ve had in spring. An extremely boring season so far with lots of wind, gloom and drizzle, very little nice weather and nothing remotely interesting. Given the similarities with Spring 1997 it wouldn't surprise me to see snow in May.

Completely agree. Not a good Spring at all. If it hadn't been for the mid-March fine spell it would have been worse than last year. This present spell of weather is excruciatingly bad with just one of the past 11 days managing 2 hours of sunshine and the weekends have been dreadful. Even today with a max of 14.5C it is overcast, windy and drizzly. Not a nice day at all. I would say it feels like a never ending November but November was easily the best month of the past 6. Very sunny and the weather of Saturday 16th November - max of 14.1C with light winds and lots of sunshine has yet to be equalled this year.

April was the sunniest month of 1954 here which is usually the sign of a terrible summer. April has been sunniest month of the year 11 times since 1900 in Aberdeen: 1900, 1906, 1912, 1914, 1927, 1942, 1952, 1954, 1965, 2007, 2011 These include some of the worst summers on record and really only 1906 and 1914 from that lot had anything resembling a decent summer.

The sooner an Atlantic flow returns the better. Currently in the midst of one of the worst ever spring spells with 6 sunless days out of 10 and 8 days out of 10 with <2hrs sun. Probably the most hideous spell this late in the spring since the ghastly May of 1983. Even April 2012 which was the dullest for over 70 years never produced a spell this grim It hasn't reached 10C since the 19th March with just one frost in that time. So not only are we seeing the same dire lack of temperature variation as throughout the whole winter but exactly the same temperatures as well. So far over half the days this year (54%) have had a maximum temperature in the very narrow range of between 5.0 and 7.5C. It's unbelievable For mind-numbingly tedious and unpleasant weather this year is worse than 2002, 2007 and 2011 combined. The worst start to a year in living memory with no close competitors.

Dull, grey and cold. An abhorrent spell of weather that is getting worse. Min 4.9C for the third day out of five and a current temp of 7.3C making it one of the coldest days of the month. At least the past couple of days had some brightness and definition to the clouds. Today it is just a dismal featureless overcast sheet

Absolutely dismal and beyond depressing output in what is shaping up to be the ultimate year from hell. The sun has gone now and god knows when it will return. Easterly gloom and drizzle for the rest of the month with maxima likely to be just below average at around 7-8C with mild minima of 4-6C. What a fantastic way to end the worst ever October to March period. Simply hideous and looking further ahead the output for early April is also as garbage as it's possible to get. A plethora of disgusting charts pretty much all showing some kind of foul SE flow

Very boring Spring so far with no variability, 3C above average, windy, lots of ridiculously mild nights (4 8C+ mins in last week), extreme lack of frost, sunshine only modestly above average, zero convection. It looks as though March will even surpass the winter for an extreme lack of cold weather with not a single cold day so far. The lowest max has been just 7.4C on the 2nd which is average for that stage of the month. There has only been one day below 6C since 14th February and that was 19th February with a max of 5.8C which means there hasn’t been a cold day for 6 weeks. It's incredible - even March 2012 recorded a low max of 4.6C which was previously my highest on record for March. Pretty much a certainty now that there will be no lying snow in the first quarter of the year for the first time since at least 1872 and just a few mm needed to make it the wettest first quarter since 1883

Started sunny then clouded over and the best part of the day was written off under unpleasant grey cloud and wind. Now the sun has popped out again. Zero convective activity and not remotely cold with a max of 8.6C though felt far colder due to the wind but nothing new there

Well above average sunshine. It has to be better than last year which just wasn't good enough. A 70 hour surplus when the previous 6 summers had chalked up a 560 hour deficit between them. A good June and August in particular are well overdue. 2003 is the only June since 1997 to reach the 1921-50 sunshine average of 189 hours which is just ridiculous and why the most recent 30-year rolling average has dropped to barely above 160 hours. Better weekend weather than weekday weather is also a must having now suffered the opposite for 7 consecutive summers Nothing worse than sitting stifling in an office all week only to suffer cool grey rubbish at the weekend.

Nothing of note here. The best was 12.3C yesterday from a low of +0.3C to high of 12.6C. Really should be able to do much better than this under a high pressure in spring. Even 11th November last year managed a range of 13.2C (from -0.3C to 12.9C) and my record stands at 19.5C on 4th April 2007 (from +0.4C to 19.9C).

Every bit as poor as winter here. Just two frosts so far: -0.1C on the 1st and -0.8C on the 4th. This week should have had some but even with pressure over 1030mb the ever present breeze scuppered things. Got down to +0.3C at 2am yesterday before the wind picked up I've now had only one min as low as -1C since 25th January and the air frost duration for autumn, winter and spring combined looks like falling short of my previous worst total for winter alone. I've had shockingly low total of just 104 hours below freezing since the first air frost on 5th November. The previous lowest total just for winter was 141.1 hours for 2007/08 and I think there's almost no chance of that being reached as, at this stage, frosts rarely last more than a few hours. When including autumn and spring, 2006/07 had the lowest total of 175.8 hours. Maxima in March so far have been extremely unvaried continuing the tedious theme of winter. A range of just 6C from a coldest max of 7.4C to mildest, 13.4C. All previous Marches since I started recording in 2006 managed at least one day below 5C and all except 2008 and 2013 exceeded 13.4C

I'll believe there's decent weather on the way only when I see it. This has been another thoroughly depressing week of weather. The worst since January. It is just unbearable on top of the worst winter of all time. Barely any sunshine since last Sunday afternoon (<5 hours) and the weekend looks rubbish - the cloudiest since January Last night's min a disgusting 7.6C and barely any higher by day with dreary grey skies. The extreme lack of temperature variation just goes on and on. Still only two days reached 10C this year, both only just, and nothing other than the odd pathetic frost. The start of last March produced warmer temperatures and the start of March 2012 colder temperatures. All that's happened in recent weeks is it's shifted from 5-7C maxes every day to 7-9C maxes every day. A total disgrace when this month should be seeing bigger swings in temperature from cold to warm than any other This evening it's raining yet again and the amount of surface water is unbelievable given that only 3mm has fallen. The ground is completely saturated and can't take any more of this ridiculous weather

I saw crocuses and daffodils out yesterday at Crathes Castle, Aberdeenshire. Not only that there were rhododendrons in full bloom as well. This is undoubtedly the most far advanced spring growth at this time since 1998 yet in places it still looks like autumn with hedgerows full of brown leaves that have never fallen off. Also I have noticed leaves starting to bud on trees that were still green at the start of December.

Months with the lowest mean pressure in Aberdeen since 1866: Feb 2014: 986.0mbFeb 1990: 990.1mbNov 2000: 992.2mbDec 1929: 993.2mbJan 1948: 993.3mbDec 1868: 993.6mbMar 1876: 993.6mbJan 2014: 994.3mbJan 1936: 994.4mbFeb 1910: 994.6mbNov 1877: 994.9mb Seasons with the lowest mean pressure since 1866: Winter 2013/14: 993.9mbWinter 1914/15: 997.5mbWinter 1909/10: 999.3mbWinter 1989/90: 999.8mbAutumn 2000 : 1000.4mbWinter 1935/36: 1000.6mbWinter 1876/77: 1001.0mbWinter 1994/95: 1001.3mbWinter 1950/51: 1001.7mbAutumn 1923 : 1001.9mb Really puts this hateful season in context. To break records by that margin after 150 years is incredible, especially given that high pressure dominated in the first half of December. Just 989mb average for 18th Dec to 28th Feb. It didn't reach 1020mb after 11th December and didn't even reach 1010mb after 12th January.

This winter is the worst by a wide margin not only in my lifetime but in any lifetime. 80 hours of frost, a low of -2.5C and no lying snow with an extreme lack of temperature variation makes it the most boring winter of all time while the unrelenting wind, horrifically wet second half due to constant frontal rain and preponderance of southerlies and south easterlies over westerlies and south westerlies make it the most unpleasant of all time. This mean pressure this month will be 4mb lower than any other month on record and this winter will have pressure at least 3mb lower than any other season on record. Given that records began in 1866 it is incredible that it could be beaten by such a wide margin. Mild snowless winters tend to be dry and sunny not wet, dull and windy like this relentless horror show. The snowy winters of 1993/94 and 2009/10 were the wettest here in the past 25 years. Previous worst winters would be 1987/88 for the very mild minima in December and very wet January, 1997/98 for the dull wet December and the horrifically mild minima in February and 2005/06 for the wet December then 2 months of mild anticyclonic gloom with very little frost or snow until March. None of them even register on the scale of awful winters compared to this one. As for 1988/89 it was much better than this dross. Not only was it much more pleasant due to being dry and sunny but the numerous extreme temperatures due to foehn effects as well as higher than normal diurnal ranges made it much more interesting. In addition there was also the noteworthy gale of 13th February 1989 which produced the record gust whereas this winter has produced no storms of note just incessant wind and rain.

I have calculated the index for my location and got a surprisingly high score of 34.3. It really deserves a score of zero given there's been no lying snow and nothing but slight frosts. Anyway here is how it compares to recent winters here: 2005/06: 54.7 2006/07: 57.1 2007/08: 46.4 2008/09: 108.6 2009/10: 331.6 2010/11: 189.1 2011/12: 67.7 2012/13: 153.8 2013/14: 34.3 2005/06 gets a much lower score than it deserves because it excludes the excellent snowfall during the first third of March and 2010/11 is also lower than expected because the snow and cold of the last week of November is excluded. 2006/07, 2007/08, 2011/12 and 2013/14 all deserve their very low values. I suspect all the 90s winters would do better than these except 97/98 and 91/92 though the latter was much frostier than any of the recent four. If the index could be adapted to include rainfall and rain days then I've no doubt this winter would score as the worst of all time. 1988/89 would score worse for wintriness but it wasn't thoroughly unpleasant like this winter has been.

Very few extreme events in my lifetime as the weather has become more benign, unvaried and temperate. So unless you include things such as extreme lack of temperature variation, extreme low diurnal ranges, etc there is very little. Here are the major records for Aberdeen from the 1850s onwards and those with an asterix are the ones I've experienced Hottest summer: 1976Coldest summer: 1912Wettest Summer: 1957Driest Summer: 1976Sunniest Summer: 1911Dullest Summer: 1912 Mildest Winter: 1988/89*Coldest Winter: 1894/95Snowiest Winter: 1946/47Least Snowy Winter Season: 1956/57Wettest Winter: 1876/77Driest Winter: 1857/58 Warmest Month: July 1933/July 2006*Coldest Month: Jan 1881 Wettest/Stormiest Month: December 1876Driest month: August 1947 - the only rain-free month! Sunniest Month: June 1936Dullest Month: December 1903 Warmest Year: 2003*Coldest Year: 1879Wettest Year: 1872Driest Year: 1921Sunniest Year: 2003*Dullest Year: 1968 Strongest Gale: January 1953 Hottest Day: July 1876 (don't know exact day but temp was 86F)Coldest Day: 27th Jan 1910Warmest Night: 25th August 1959Coldest Night: 23rd Feb 1955 (depends on location - this is the record for Dyce)Wettest Day: 24th July 1970Longest Drought: 21st Feb - 25th March 1953 Most Thundery Year: 1957 Biggest Snowstorm: 29th December 1908 Earliest Snowfall: 19th September 1919 Latest Snowfall: 2nd June 1975 Biggest Floods: 1829, 1920, 1937 as marked on a fisherman's hut by the River Dee at Park House, Drumoak, Aberdeenshire. These three stand out by a mile with nothing comparable in recent years.

Hasn't been any decent snow in February here since 2010. The last three were dire and this is even worse and looking like the first since 2000 to have no lying snow at all. A worse run than any in the 1990s. In fact even February 1998 was snowier than any of the last four which has been the most snowless run since the 1920s. The period from 1907 to 1928 was extraordinarily snowless for February, with not one snowy month, and the post-1988 period has been nowhere near as bad. 1991, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2009 and 2010 were all decently snowy February's and most of the others managed at least something. Unlike January very few have had no lying snow.