Richard2901

Mid-October used to be the time for the first air frost now it's more like mid-November or even December in the case of the rock-bottom barrel-scraping pile of dross that was autumn 2011. By this stage of October the long-term mean min is below 5C which means an air frost should be more likely than a double digit min. However while we had to endure a further three double digit horrors on the trot earlier this week the lowest so far is 1.9C on 17th Oct with September having had more nights below 5C than October. It's ridiculous with yet another ghastly October following on from 1999, 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011. It's the equivalent of getting a December like 2009 or 2010 every second year but that would never happen as it's only bad things that we have to suffer an overload of these days. It would certainly be very unusual to not record air frost in November even at my coastal location. Only twice has this happened, at official stations, in the last century: in 1931 when the lowest was 2C and in 1997 when it was just above zero. Both years however had air frost in October so there has never been an official frost free autumn. My own weather station dipped no lower than 0.8C in autumn 2011 but there was a slight frost recorded at the airport on 6th November.

One of the most depressing months I can remember. Any sun seems to only be late morning or afternoon and there's been little of that - less than 50 hours up to the 20th (~ 70% of average) with just 2 days managing 6 hours. Almost every single night has seen 100% cloud cover leading to horrendously gloomy and dark starts to the day. Rainfall way above average - about 120% at the moment - and even when it's not raining it feels damp and unpleasant. Only minima have been mild here with a 2C positive anomaly. Maxima have been almost bang on average so far and that's only due to the warm spell from 4th to 8th as the vast majority of days have been below average. Just 3 days between the 9th and 20th reached the average max of 12C and in all cases only just. More cloudy non-descript dross today and getting dark already under heavy overcast. A truly awful month

11.8C, damp,gloomy,overcast,SE'ly wind. Just the same every single day

Vile washout day. 9.6mm of rain so far with 19mm since yesterday evening. Temp is average at 11.6C following another yet disgusting mild min of 9.7C.

In general the higher the proportion of easterly or south easterly winds the more boring the month. You can add southerlies as well between Oct and April. There's nothing more boring than months full of drizzle, grey skies, mild nights, low diurnal ranges and a lack of extreme weather. Plenty of months like that in the past decade. Probably more than in any other period. These are the months that stand out as being the most monotonous October 2004 March 2005 October 2005 (except for one heavy rain event) Jan 2006 Feb 2006 June 2007 September 2008 April 2009 May 2011 Oct 2011 Nov 2011 June 2012 July 2012 March 2013 May 2011 wasn't dull like the rest but the lack of temperature variation was unbelievable. Mean Max 1C above average but absolute Max the lowest since 1983. For a sequence of extreme tedious months it would be hard to beat September to December 1968. Four months of almost relentless anticyclonic gloom conditions. Really glad not to have been around back then to suffer that.

Another vile day here. Sun has given way to yet more drizzly gloomy garbage off the North Sea. This month is reminding me of many summer months from 2007-2012. Utterly awful day after day with an extreme lack of W/SW winds and a hopelessly poor outlook with not a single dry day in the next week and a particularly nasty soggy write-off weekend. Will join the Octobers of 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011 to rank as one of the worst ever. Half way through the month it's not even gone below 5C. Just like the cold, cloudy dross of March and early April ruined the spring blooms this mild, gloomy muck, we're now into the 4th week of suffering, has ruined the chances of getting any decent autumn colour. Thank god I've got a week in the Canaries coming up soon. Can't wait to escape from this depressing soul-destroying gloom.

The only colour in the trees here are the leaves that changed in September and many of them have fallen off now. Any leaves that were green at the end of September still are. It has yet to drop below 5C in October. It's just ridiculous. All this 'cold' spell has brought is average minima. It,s worse than 2006 which had dropped to 3.8C by this stage of the month.

Today was forecast to be fine and sunny with temps up to 18C so I thought it'll be the final chance to enjoy some warm weather this year. Wrong as it's just more of the same depressing rank grey filth that we have had to endure on all but one of the past 9 days. A useless, write-off day with zero sunshine Looking at the satellite it's just ridiculous. There is an area of stagnant cloud just stuck over us that just won't move or break up despite there being plenty of clear skies all around. I am beyond sick of this garbage. 1 sunny day in 10 and 2 sunny days out of 13 is absolutely dire even by this country's standards. A pattern change can't come soon enough as literally anything would be better than this cloudy mild nothingness which, as well as being extremely uninteresting, is disastrous for the tree foliage as demonstrated perfectly by the autumns of 2006 and 2011. October used to be one of the more interesting months as a wide variety of conditions would be possible: the last warmth of summer, the first frost of winter, gales and storms. Now none of these are likely. Just endless cloudy mild nights, maxes of 11-14C, low diurnal ranges and the odd bit of drizzle. Real warm Octobers of the past like 1921, 1959 and 1969 saw 21C reached whereas pathetic trash like 2005, 2006, 2011 and now 2013 can't even reach 18C

We've now had 7 consecutive double digit minima I believe only the ghastly Autumn of 2006 has had such a long run this late on when there were 8 from 14th to 21st October - an outstandingly gloomy and horrific period of weather. Last Autumn by contrast had no double digit minima after mid-September and was like a breath of fresh air. A very nice, pleasant sunny season with none of the southerly/south easterly gloom which has been so common in October since 1999.

I am absolutely loathing the current non-weather and it just gets worse and worse. The gloomiest day of this dismal depressing spell, following a 6th consecutive double digit min with probably at least a further two to come. It's ridiculous especially since it barely gets any warmer during the day. It just feels cold and horrible with the grey skies and hateful SE wind. This is pure and utter filth. Nasty and unpleasant dross that 15 years ago would have stood out as one of the worst ever autumn spells but is now something that we have to endure pretty much every other year. The trees colour has not advanced at all over the past week due to this awful cloudy mild nothingness

October 2007 was very settled and high pressure dominated. I only had 8 days with measurable rain and 16mm for the month. It was also the only October in the past decade to see any real warmth with 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011 just full of the dross we have at the moment: cloudy skies with average day temperatures and ridiculously mild nights. A repeat of any of them would be just unbearable - truly awful months.

Need the heating on every day of this dire spell. Little or no sun to heat the house up. Night time temperatures are irrelevant. No heating needed last Thursday night, despite a min of 3C, as it was sunny all day and the house retained the warmth in the evening. Double digit dross at night followed by a cloudy day with temperatures barely any higher results in no warming during the day meaning heating is necessary in the evening.

A change to either NW’lys, W’lys or SW’lys can’t come soon enough. The current weather is awful. Grey cloudy dross for the 5th day out of 6. Thursday was an ideal autumn day: sunny with a min of 3.4C and max of 13.7C. Otherwise it’s been night after night of dire double-digit mins followed by daytime temperatures no higher than average and cloudy skies

It would be awful and just confirm that we are in an abysmal run of winters on a par with the record breaking snowless write-offs of the late 80s/early 90s. A mildest winter on record would be unlikely to have any decent snow so by the time it was possible to get another decent snowfall it would be November/December 2014 and the 4th anniversary of the last one The only consolation would be that if it was like 1988/89 we would at least have plenty dry bright and sunny weather with mins averaging out around 3-4C and maxes 10C. However if it were anything like December 1934: mins of 6C, maxes of 8C, 20 hours of sun and 120mm of rain with no frost that would be beyond horrific and depressing and a real struggle to have to endure for 3 months without turning to antidepressants.

As expected we lost the sun today to be replaced with disgusting gloomy, drizzly foggy easterly murk. Min 11.3C, max 14.0C. The worst type of non-weather and what we have had to endure in abundance in autumn over the last 15 years particularly during the detestable Octobers of 1999, 2001, 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011. There are some nice colours starting to show the trees now and a continuation of this dross is the last thing I want to see. It's just awful and prolonged periods of this really have an adverse effect on autumn leaf colour

A poor day today. Lots of sunshine forecast but ended up with lots of cloud and not even 4 hours of sun Yet another cold morning as well with temps still well in single figures at 8am. It's actually worse than earlier in the week. Tuesday and Wednesday were much better - far sunnier with similar temps (only 1C cooler). If the weekend brings more of the same it will be the worst weekend of the month not the best.

If the lack of northerlies is as bad as in the last two abysmal winters and the woeful final two-thirds of winter 2010/11 then the answer is a resounding no.

Central heating is an necessity in this dire weather. Indoor temperature down to 14.9C when I woke up this morning

Sunshine far from impressive in Eastern Scotland with July the only sunny month. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2013/6/2013_6_Sunshine_Anomaly_1981-2010.gif http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2013/7/2013_7_Sunshine_Anomaly_1981-2010.gif http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2013/8/2013_8_Sunshine_Anomaly_1981-2010.gif and overall most of Fife and parts of Angus managed only average sunshine with most of the rest of the region having a modest surplus though Moray did very well due to being more sheltered from easterlies: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2013/14/2013_14_Sunshine_Anomaly_1981-2010.gif It's just not good enough given that this part of the country has suffered the worst of the lack of sunshine over the past 6 years. It's about time we had another summer where the anomalies come out like this: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2003/14/2003_14_Sunshine_Anomaly_1971-2000.gif Hopefully summer 2014!

Sunset is now before 8pm and tonight is the first very cold night of the autumn. It's already down to 7.6C which is lower than any temperature between 4th July and 30th August

My stats: Mean Max: 18.6C (+1.1) Mean Min: 10.9C (+0.8 ) Highest Max: 26.8C (9th July) Lowest Min: 4.4C (3rd June) Rainfall: 135.4mm (83%) Rain days: 33 (-11) Sunshine: 571.8 hours (115%) Sunniest Day: 14.4 hours (5th July) I'm awaiting the final stats from Dyce but it is likely to score similar to 2006 on my index i.e. just outside the top 10 since 1946. I thought it was much better than 2006 (a summer I don't rate at all), though nowhere near as good as 1995 and 2003. Maybe because my foreign holiday in 2006 coincided with the best weather and I had to suffer the appalling August in it's entirety whereas this year I took my holiday in the final third of August which was the worst spell of the whole summer. Only the second summer since 1997 to manage 105% of average sunshine but the surplus of 73 hours barely begins to make up the 560 hour deficit that accrued over the past 6 summers. Weekend weather was worse than weekday weather as it was in each of the past 6 summers Weekday Mean Max: 19.0C Weekend Mean Max: 17.8C Weekday Mean Rain: 1.34mm Weekend Mean Rain: 1.79mm Weekday Mean Sun: 6.26 hours Weekend Mean Sun: 6.11 hours The weekend stats really aren't far off average so it was really only the weekdays that were good and I would rather have a wet unsettled summer, like 2004, where the good weather falls at weekends than a dry settled summer where the cool wet muck falls at weekends.

The best Indian Summer spell for Aberdeen was undoubtedly 1st - 4th October 1908. Nothing else can compare. Just a pity that it's so long ago there's no-one around who would be able to remember it. 1st: 75F (24C) 2nd: 74F (23C) 3rd: 77F (25C) 4th: 73F (23C) An incredible spell that would be rare in summer and also coincided with the weekend in sharp contrast to all warm weather in the past 7 years. It was all over on Monday 5th though when it only reached 54F (12C). The rest of the month was pretty horrible with a run of 5 sunless days from 16th to 20th. The last 40 years have been dire for high temperatures in October. The only spell of note was 3rd to 5th October 1997 all of which reached 20-22C and it was a weekend as well

Can't really remember any. Plenty of years have warm sunny weather in early September e.g. 1999, 2004, 2007, 2012 but late August often seems autumnal even in good years like 1995 and 2003 late August was poor. If we get one this year it will probably be because I'm abroad which is the first time I've had my summer holiday this late. I get back from Italy on 4th September so you can bank on that being the day the warm settled weather ends.

Here are my favourite calendar months from the past 20 years when I have been interested in the weather: Jan - 2003Feb - 1999March - 2006/2012April - 2007May - 2001June - 1994July - 2006Aug - 1995Sept - 2004Oct - 1997Nov - 2008Dec - 2010 Couldn't decide for March. Ideally it would be like 2006 for the first third and 2012 for the remainder. A fantastic arctic blast to start with then the first warm and sunny weather of spring. and the worst: Jan - 1996Feb - 1994March - 1996April - 2012May - 1997June - 2007/2012July - 2012Aug - 2011Sept - 2001Oct - 2011Nov - 2011Dec - 2002 The best calendar months would be August 1995 and December 2010 but both were spoiled by a rubbish final week. The best non-calendar monthly periods were about 23rd July to 22nd August 1995 and 26th Nov - 25th Dec 2010. My most hated months were undoubtedly June 2007, June 2012 and July 2012. All utterly vile without a single redeeming quality.

7/10. Nowhere near as good as it should have been given the synoptics. While it was the best summer month since July 2006, months like April 2007, April 2011 and March 2012 were vastly superior. Sunshine (216.6hrs) similar to the long forgotten Julys of 1971 and 1982 and way short of July 1955 (263hrs). However I would say that the synoptics were much more favourable than 1971 and 1982 and closer to 1955. It was not even as sunny as May 2013 (217.2hrs), which on paper would look to have inferior synoptics. There was only one good weekend with the other three having one good day and one poor day. Basically far too much easterlies spoiling things yet again. There were more cooler than average days than there were warmer than average days in the last two Julys combined and, due to several vile days in the last third of the month, rainfall ended up above average for the 5th successive July - the first time this has happened since the late 1930s. It was also yet another summer month where we ended up wetter than Stornoway which is completely unacceptable.Very worrying if this is the best that we can get in summer nowadays. The wait for a warm, sunny and dry summer month enters it's 8th year.