LetItSnow!

MP-R When February is running warmer than an average April up until the closing days it’s springlike to me!

Wold Topper There is a word for weather modelling when it comes to predictions from stuff like ENSO, SSTs, QBOs etc but God knows what it is.

I do find it interesting on a personal level, and not to begrudge anyone at all, but the lack of sunshine and excess of rainfall, while it has been noticeable to me, it’s felt more of a “meh it’s been a bit grim” rather than utter despair. I find it interesting how the weather affects us differently. I also won’t hide the privilege of not being flooded and living in the city. But yeah, I haven’t found the past years weather particularly trying at all to be honest. The only points that got to me was the heightened feeling of darkness in December and how springlike February was.

John S2 I believe they are talking about global telecommunications like SSTs and things like that. Analogues that use years with similar conditions on a local level (like say this year trying to look at summers following very mild Februarys) are useless as you can't just say "Mild February means so and so" because that mild February could have occured in El Nino, La Nina, a different ENSO state etc, it's just not worth the time.

BlueSkies_do_I_see Wet soil isn't as conducive to heat (or cold) so if the spring and even June were wet it would perhaps limit potential, but 20-25C uppers are going to be baking hot regardless. It may just mean the difference between 39C and 43C. But each heatwave is so unique in its set up with so many different factors. Wet springs are lovely and good for gardens. I enjoyed last years very much so. I do think that a wet spring would probably be overkill this year though. I just hope we don't go from one extreme to another...

I don't think it's even that rare a chance. 2019, 2020, 2022 all saw intense heat spikes and 2023 had an exceptional spell that just happened to occur outside of the peak time. All it takes is another waft of hot air remaining in place for a day or so longer and preferably occuring in July or early August and we'll do it. I would be very surprised if we haven't at least attempted it around the 40-41C mark by 2029. Every year the contintent is burning up with every year since at least 2015 having mass expansions of heat burst northward and I'm sure 2024 will be the same. As long as Europe keeps getting hotter and dryer then it's highly likely we'll get there soon, unless we have a spell of relatively cool summers. I hope the latter, but I've grown to expect wisely.

WYorksWeather I don't think that it was actually 40C at all but they had asked if there was ever an unofficial recording. There was also an unofficial reading of 42C in July 2006 which is even more ridiculous.

raz.org.rain I believe there was an unofficial reading of 40C+ in July 1808. Derecho What makes it so funny and ironic is that the increasing cold anomalies they spoke of effectively ended the following month as we've generally been mostly very mild/warm since July 2013.

Out of interest I did this with randomised years (I went to a random number generator between 1836 and 2023) and it spawned what would be considered an absolute classic summer with bucket loads of thunder. I won't post it today but it sure will make 2040 (or 2041, 2042, 2043 etc depending on who else gets in) a very interesting one.

Apparently we have June 31st by 2037

Sorry!

As you wish! Tried to leave it vague as always as I didn't want a carbon copy of times past so you can let your imagination choose locations of storms, temperatures etc. No craziness like 2037 though I actually was laughing all the way through that. 30C every day in June and then 1000mm in a single day??? Permanently changed geography??? I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear that!!! May 2039 1st-7th: Unsettled with unusually deep low pressure systems from the Atlantic on a southerly tracking jet stream. Occasional plumes of warm, unstable air from the south. 8th-11th: The blocking high across Greenland intensifies. Low pressure clears east and cuts off the warm, humid airmass. Potential for extreme rainfall, thunderstorms, hail, mist and low cloud. 12th-18th: Low pressure dominated with winds often from a northerly quadrant. Often quite weak lows and meander for days and bring lots of showery weather. Still a risk for severe thunderstorms, mist and low cloud. 19th-25th: High pressure establishes though mostly within quite cool air. A chance of some warm and sunny days as the high becomes more UK-centred. 26th-29th: The ridge retrogresses once again to let rather tame northerlies. A risk of mostly light showers and cloudy weather, particularly in the east. June 2039 30th-June 9th: High pressure becoming an established force ridging from the mid-Atlantic up to Scandinavia. Weaker pressure to and over the south at times bringing the risk of cloud, rain and severe thunderstorms. Generally becoming warm to very warm away from the cloud. 10th-21st: Low pressure to the south becoming explosive and intensifying into a deep UK low and generally becoming a very unsettled period. Starting very warm to hot but temperatures gradually moderating. High risk of severe thunderstorms, hail, flooding and tornados at this time. 22nd-28th: Pressure raises and eventually a plume of very hot and humid air gradually encroaches from the southeast with the 20C line making into the south-east. High pressure remaining dominant over Scandinavia with south-easterly winds. “Higher” pressure as pressure remains slack throughout so the risk of severe, damaging thunderstorms remains high, though more isolated than mid-month. July 2039 29th-July 3rd: Pressure gradually increases and the storm risk dies out. A slight change of wind direction means humidity drops and it becomes more comfortable, though high pressure remains in situ, ridging right over the top of the country with uppers of 15C in the south, so unbroken sunshine and hot/very hot temperatures. August 2039 4th-August 5th: A large, immovable anticyclone becomes lodged over north-west Europe keeping the UK under hot sunshine all month. A brief re-adjustment of the high early on gives a couple of cooler days, some broken cloud and maybe some isolated light showers, but it quickly turns hot again as high pressure becomes fully established. During this period, apart from early on, there is barely any, if any cloud at all. Mostly bone dry though with some brief but very isolated but very intense damaging thunderstorms. In this period (after the brief cooler phase) somewhere in the UK reaches at least 30C somewhere in the country. It cements July as the best summer month ever recorded in UK history. 6th-12th: Remaining warm to very warm but with high pressure weakening to allow generally weak pressure to dominate this period. This period is likely to bring widespread severe damaging thunderstorms. 13th-17th: The Atlantic breaks in after being dormant all summer, though it’s not an Atlantic onslaught. Pressure remains fairly high in the south and the depressions are fairly weak, plus with residual warmth it remains still rather warmer than average with high pressure nearby, but gives particularly northern areas much needed rainfall. 18th-21st: High pressure builds back in to give another hot spell, this time not as noteworthy but still with the 15C line making its way much of southern England. 22nd-30th: Remaining dry as high pressure continues to dominate, just slightly positioning slightly more to our west allowing slightly less hot temperatures, but remaining very warm and locally hot, though nights rather cool in places. Sunshine in abundance and virtually rainless. September 2039 31st-September 3rd: The high pressure sinks southward allowing westerlies and low pressure in. This brings the first widespread cool and wet day in weeks. 4th-7th: The low pressure quickly clears allowing high pressure to reestablish over the UK and bring another spell of very warm to locally hot weather. Increasingly long nights do allow nights to remain fresh. 8th-16th: High pressure continues to dominate with the high mostly centred over and just to our west. Days remain very warm, even locally hot at first, but gradually cool as the high becomes UK centred and nights get longer and in some areas mist and fog begin to develop. The very dry ground from the long hot summer means nights become unusually cold and locally some ground frost is recorded, particularly in areas that are prone, leading to some large diurnal variations. Some places see cold, foggy mornings only to see very warm, sunny afternoons. 17th-20th: The high retrogresses to allow low pressure to develop over the country and sit over us and into the North Sea, bringing a risk of outbreaks of rain, showers, drizzle and low cloud and some very cool maxima. A taste of autumn. 21st-30th: High pressure pulls back westwards into the mid-Atlantic but this time allowing deep low pressure systems to graze the UK at times. Unsettled, cool at times and windy but the high pressure remaining close by to keep the south mostly safe with paltry rainfall amounts.

Summer8906 The 19th-30th I just took from 1972. I try to make them vague as possible as I don't want carbon copy repeats, just loose analogues. The very wet spell September was 1968. I try to make them mesh. I've just completed the same thing but for hot summers and I'm afraid to post to be greedy and overwork @CryoraptorA303but I think I've made the best summer ever!

Feel free to kick me out at this point, but I had an idea to take different portions of notably bad summers and stitch them together BUT not in terms of putting the poorest parts together. More so, starting with June 1st, 1903 and looking at the weather patterns, and when the weather pattern changes, then go ahead to the next notoriously bad summer (1907) and so forth, so it's basically randomised with a die loaded towards a poor summer in this case. It's a pretty lengthy one but you enjoy these and I love seeing them come to life. As always, get your creative hat on with stats and such (remain realistic as possible). Here's what this summer would look like. Ideally this should be 2037 to take place after 2036 but I may be too late. June 1st-6th: High pressure dominating though centred to our west into the mid-Atlantic with a very gentle NE flow from the north-east. Low pressure around the Bay of Biscay. June 7th-16th: Increasingly low pressure forces high pressure southward and eastward, meanwhile a strong high pressure over the Barents Sea forms. Low pressure dominated but with often southerly influences so Atlantic dominated but occasionally humid and thundery. June 17th-28th: Low pressure in the Atlantic becomes even more vigorous with unusually deep depressions in from the Atlantic. High pressure begins to weaken to our north-east so the lows are able to pass through and allow cooler air from a northerly quadrant at times. June 29th-July 3rd: A more benign period as low pressure tracks eastward into Central Europe and fizzles out while high pressure reestablishes itself in the mid-Atlantic. Winds generally from a N/NE direction. July 4th- 8th: Weak troughs remain dominant as high pressure remains displaced to our west and flabby lows remain situated over and to our east. Winds generally from a N/NE direction still. July 9th-19th: A strong low in the Atlantic forces the mid-Atlantic block southward and winds revert to a westerly direction. Generally unsettled with low pressure systems frequently affecting the country, but now with higher pressure to the south and occasional very warm/humid sectors. July 20th-25th: Any warm and humid air gets shunted away to our east as a cooler airmass reestablishes itself. Cool air meeting humid (though not overly hot) air causes a widespread thundery spell on the 22nd and 23rd with some severe thunderstorm potential almost anywhere in the country. July 26th-August 7th: Very low pressure dominated with unusually frequent and vigorous Atlantic storms bringing mostly cool westerlies, but also occasional warm sectors at times, though probably with a lot of cloud and rain so no heatwaves. August 8th-21st: Low pressure tends to centre more to our north-west so turning even cooler, though the Atlantic remains just as vigorous with many low pressure systems, some very deep and only brief pulses of warm air. August 22nd-25th: Low pressure clears into the Low Countries and leaves an unusually cool northerly feed of air. August 26th-September 1st: Unusually deep low pressure to our north-east at times with a very cool north/northeasterly flow dominating. Showery, unusually cool airmass. High pressure remains to our west/northwest. High pressure, longer nights and cool airmass mean the capacity for some unusually chilly nights. September 2nd-8th: A gradual slip south of high pressure allows one solitary very warm day that’s warmer than almost the entire summer (but it’s not an extreme heat spike) but it’s a one day wonder as it’s generally very autumnal as the westerlies get going and further unusually deep depressions track over the country. September 9th-14th: Atlantic dominated with further depressions. An unusually vigorous low pressure systems gives the deepest pressure ever recorded in the UK in the month of September during the 14th and crosses in an unusual fashion as it moves NW-SE and becomes cut off over France. September 15th-18th: The low gradually fills but remains stuck over the south-east, so while the damaging winds are over, the heavy rain isn’t. This leads to an exceptional rain event that occurs on already sodden ground. Torrential rain causes catastrophic flooding over much of England, mostly in the east and south. Rivers burst their banks and millions worth of damage occurs. It becomes a weather event remarked amongst the likes of October 1987, January 1953 etc. September 19th-30th: As if though the weather gods had felt guilty, high pressure builds as the low pressure fizzles out and the rest of the month sees high pressure dominating, often over the country. It’s the only spell of high pressure domination all summer and comes far too late for any meaningful warmth and far too late for any summer holidays. Still, it brings some warm and sunny days but some lovely chilly nights.

Interestingly it seemed to be a month on a knife edge to much hotter weather. Blisteringly hot anomalies to our south-east.

A year of anti-seasons. In a way it's 2003's evil twin (almost).

raz.org.rain So the future will turn us from a cold grey bog to a warm grey grotty swamp. Lucky I don't mind the rain!

Weather-history Extra kick in the face seeing how summer 2019 was about the second wettest ever. I was in the north-west in August 2019 and I remember it being mostly very wet and unsettled but with a brief, tame warm and sunny spell at some point in the second half. Tame to my southern senses but it only got somewhere around the 25-27C mark.

The chart for July 1st, 1968 is fascinating for many different reasons but it's a great example of the difference between what is capable now vs then. The 20C line extended well into the south-east and may at some point during the afternoon have been as high as 21C in some places. Such heat formed a heat low and it's little wonder why the storms were so intense! What's interesting is how the hottest temperature of that spell was 33C but that same would be much hotter today. It's interesting because it's an example (to me) of what a current era synoptic would produce back then. Indeed that chart wouldn't look out of place in July 2024. Compare the chart to two days later on July 3rd, 1968 which was positively freezing in comparison! EDIT: What's also interesting is how we almost had a second bite on the 10th. July 1968 was on a knife edge from having some seriously hot weather dominating.

Frigid The northerly in May 2020 would have been extra sharp since the ground was so dry. May 2020 was interesting for temperatures as it was very much a see-saw in the first half. The month began cool and showery (though mostly bone dry down here) and stayed cool until high pressure slipped south-eastwards which gave a short warm spell into the mid-twenties around the 7th-10th before the winds abruptly switched north (unusually cold winds too as the -10C line scraped the far north of Scotland on the 11th). It remained cool mid-month until the high pressure eventually repositioned itself in a warmer phase and the second-half was mostly warm/very warm. But up until the first half the temperature averaged rather close to normal.

Sun Chaser Espexially for the north of England/Scotland where July in particular onwards it was just cool and unsettled for most of the summer with little to no impact from the heat spikes really. I don’t even think August 2020 was even that warmer than average in Scotland, at least not by the modern averages. I think daytime maximums were depressed.

I know 2016 I recorded a frost as late as May 1st. May 2020 I wasn't recording at that time but the northerly mid-month definitely did it in places I think.

Summer8906 The interesting thing about July 2000 is that high pressure did indeed build in the second half with nice looking charts but the highest temperature that month was only something like 27C so it really was a very benign ridge of high pressure. Couldn't imagine that modest of a temperature nowadays. Late July 2000 looks very slack. Was this a forgotten thundery period? A very nice looking afternoon in London on the 21st. Heathrow shows this day as the warmest day of the month, a very tame 26C. Even the poor Julys of 1980, 1987, 1993, 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2023 had a higher maxima than that. Only two days over 30C all year at Heathrow and they occured on the 18th and 19th of June.

WYorksWeather June: I'll use the first week of June as mixed. The summer will come in gentle with the Azores generally displaced to our west, starting close by so mostly fine but some showery interludes with rather normal days but some cool nights. Then I'll use the next week as a warm and mostly dry week as the high pressure collapses over the UK. Uppers are close to average so the days gradually become very warm but nights stay cool with days in the low to mid-twenties but some places having single digit minima. Then I'll take the two weeks of mixed conditions to close June as the high pressure gradually relaxes south to allow an Atlantic influence with some wet and windy days interspersed with dry and fine weather and near-normal temperatures. A pulse of warm air in the final week ends June on an unstable, humid note with storms with temperatures in the upper 20s. July: I'll use up the two hot weeks for the first half of July which will see the thundery trough slowly dissipate and high pressure build. The high pressure is centered in the North Sea and the flow is gently north-easterly with uppers in the 8-12C region. The heatwave is a tame affair with temperatures no higher than 32C and it's not a complete two week heatwave as there are some interruptions like a nearby spoiler low giving cloudier/thundery interludes and some cooler days as the high pressure re-establishes itself more to the west. The second-half of July I'll use up two more mixed weeks. The high pressure backs west enough to allow low pressure to generate over the country and brings a spell of very wet and thundery weather. Once the low clears a generally westerly flow takes hold with low pressure at times and some showery northerlies that prove heat lovers that you don't need warmth for good storms as we see unusually intense storms. Generally though the second-half isn't a washout by any means and high pressure is never far away and begins ridging in again in late July with a return of sunshine and low/mid-twenties temperatures. August: I'll use my final two settled weeks for the first-half of August with a west-based high pressure system bringing a lot of fair weather days with variable cloud, sunny spells and temperatures in the upper teens/low twenties, some mid-twenties days as well. Nights average pretty cool. The high retrogresses as I use my last cool unsettled week for week three as the high retrogresses with low pressure bringing wet weather. I then save my very cool week for the end of August when we get an unusually potent northerly that sees the Scottish mountains get their first wintry showers and we see ground frost in places with temperatures widely falling into single figures even further south. I'd imagine June has a C.E.T. around 14.6, July 17.2 and August 14.9. The warmest temperature of the year would be a modest 32.1C in early July. There would no tropical nights and the warmest night of the year would be a very modest 17C.

hillbilly The ultimate poor (modern) summer would be a mix of the three. Imagine a June like 2012, July like 2007 and August like 2008.