Weather-history

Not a lot happening day

Time lapse of approaching crespecular rays

Indeed

Here are the averages for Carlisle http://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/England/Carlisle/statistics.htmlBraemarhttp://www.yr.no/place/United_Kingdom/Scotland/Braemar/statistics.html

I'm sorry but I totally disagree.Flora and fauna are active, leaves still on trees, the sun still sets after 8pm even at end of August, days still longer than night. There is no way in a million years, August is more common with winter than summer.And that isn't mentioning the weather aspects!

An improving day

83 days of the year that the sun sets at 9pm or after in this area. That's just about 12 weeks, quite a period of time. Longer than you think.

You may consider August, the first month of winter but I wouldn't take that to court because you could be laughed out of it.I live in NW England and there is no way August can be described this. You gotta be joking?

They are certainly drawing in

Looking at the figures for Manchester, maxima were 20C or above from the 8th to the end of the month.

August 1984 was an interesting month. It had warmer second half than first half for the CET. First half: 16.3 Second half: 18.9 CET: 17.6 It was overall a dry, sunny, warm month. I remember the heatwave during the second half of the month, it was hot and sunny. Highest maxima recorded during month Valley: 30.9C on 21st Heathrow: 29.8C on 21st Bedford: 29.5C on 20th Abbotsinch: 29.2C on 20th Ringway: 29.0C on 21st

27th/28th July 2014

Front passage time lapse 26th/27th July 2014

First dark evening here before 10pm for some time

If people expect every hot spell to end with a bang then you are forever going to being disappointed. It's the summer equivalent of a cold spell ending with no snow. It happens and will always happen. A lot of the past great cold and hot spells don't end spectacularly.

25th July 2014: more cloud about in the afternoon

To be honest, it really accelerates after 7th February. There is a roughly 90 day period with the two solstices being the mid points of those periods where the change in sunrise and sunset times is at its lowest. The 90 days periods where the mid points are the equinoxes is where the greatest changes occur.For instance there is only an hour difference between sunset times on the 7th May to solstice to 7th August at Manchester. There is just under 4 hours between 7th Feb and 7th May

The visibilty has been pretty good in this spell. Looks like two lights chasing each other at one stage!

Am I right in saying that Ireland or at least parts of it seems to have a really thundery year thus far? Whenever I look when sferics are active, some part of Ireland seems to have been affected this year.

August 7th is the key date, that is Lughnasadh, the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox. Get pass that and the length of daylight each day really accelerates.

Well what can you use?Rainfall totals are no good, you said you have taken time to look at plenty of data, you must know August 1981 then. A month on face value was wet but infact most of the rain fell on one night. There were a lot of dry days that month.This summer index was devised to gauge how good/bad summers were, it isn't full proof but I think it does its job pretty well.I devised the Manchester Winter Index, it's not full proof but I think it does its job sufficiently, last winter was the least wintriest for years and I think a lot of people would agree with this.

Time lapse of combine harvesters bring in rape seed harvest

It would be but it would be such a small amount. The index was devised for over a length of time such as a month or a season not for short periods.

You are judging from human memory though, is human memory infallible? Trouble with human memory, it tends to exaggerate. Rose coloured glasses effect.I think it got as high as 277 at one stage at the end of July but August was a poor month. What brought down the index value was the increase number of rain days during August. August was a wet month for Manchester, rainfall totals were over 150% of the average.How many people realise just how wet August 2006 was in the Manchester area? There were only 7 dry days by definition. August 2006 was a mediocre month.