Relativistic

If Arctic sea ice really is doomed then why don't we deploy the stratoshield? It's not like there is nothing we can do.

Well it's been a month since the solstice, so the change in day length will now pick up some pace. A full two hours will be knocked off in August.

Hopefully the disgusting heat in Europe stays clear of here for the most part, with perhaps one plume thrown in to give us a decent thunderstorm. 14.7C.

I'm fairly neutral on this, I see reasons for the record to be both valid and invalid. He is just making a point. Let him have his say and then let people debate it.

Unfortunately I wasn't around then to experience it.

1947 must have been incredible. The coldest February ever followed by, what was at the time, the warmest August ever. I thought 2013 was extreme (13th coldest March and coldest for 130 years, followed by the joint 10th warmest July), but obviously not!

Unfortunately I have never witnessed it. Given that the London area saw some I was pretty unlucky. According to this, most notably during the Little Ice Age, October snow in the south was commoner than some might think. http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=winter-history;sess= I hope it becomes more common again, the closest I've come to seeing it was a few minutes of falling snow in late October 2012 that rapidly turned to sleet and then rain. The earliest I have seen settling snow (that I remember at least) just scraped its way into Autumn 2010 on the 30th November, which probably sounds ludicrous to some people. I hate being in the south east sometimes.

One of the best things about Summer for me is sunset. I don't know why, but very often at this time of year the sunsets can be simply staggering. My crappy photographs just don't do justice to the last 20 minutes.

With a downward correction on that we could end up below the 61-90 average! That would be amazing, to record the warmest ever July temperature in a month that turned out to be below average. Having said that, absolutely nothing is certain at this stage and I reckon we are much, much more likely to end up above average.

Exactly what I thought. No one even suggested fiddling. Anyway. Even if you do try to account for areas being too urban, where do you draw the line between what is too urban and what isn't? Perhaps Heathrow is an exceptional location because of where it is situated. But then you have stations like Benson which can also be exceptional due to where they are situated (ie, in frost hollows), does that make readings there invalid?

No one said a massive impact. If the record was broken my a mere 0.2C then only a very small temperature boost could have caused the record to go, which, given the Heathrow station's surroundings, doesn't seem too inconceivable.Just my opinion.

Who said that? October 2008 saw snow in your neck of the woods.

I miss his rants.

Ah probably, this particular place did seem browner than just about everywhere else.

Wow, the grass is actually browner than I thought in places. This is a flood plain near where I live in Great Baddow:

That grass looks quite brown to me. When I'm talking about brown grass I don't mean fields and fields of it!

Lots of brown grass around here. I think we did need today's rain.

Seriously, keep it up. Your contributions to this thread are brilliant

Some of us enjoy being outside when it's cold/ "dull"/ windy/ drizzly etc.As for Autumn, I hope the Thames freezes over as soon as we hit the equinox.

A certain dimness out there tonight already. Noticeably different to a couple of weeks ago, although cloudcover may be playing a part.

Hear hear.

Should be 18.1C.

Perhaps I should have gunned for my original guess of 14.9C instead of changing to 16.2C... Things change quickly though.

Since I've been back in Chelmsford (over two weeks ago) we've had one thunderstorm to speak of, which isn't brilliant really.

The only thing that I think that could possibly be is a rod, but it doesn't look like most rods.