ManiaMuse

Gained an hour of daylight since the shortest day here now Wish the overcast skies would go away though.

This week has been very frustrating. Monday was lovely with clear skies and still some light in the sky coming up to 5pm. However since then it had been continuous thick cloud and foggy skies and was pitch black by 4.15pm on Tuesday and Wednesday. Today is yet another overcast day grrr.... At least when the sun appears again the changing daylight hours will be even more noticeable.

Gained over half an hour here now, 20 minutes of that in the evenings. Starts to really accelerate now. Still a way to go but we are past the worst of the December gloom now and at least you can start to notice the changing daylight hours.

Sunset is the right side of 4pm here today You are right, it does become more noticeable in late January as things speed up (and then I start to get frustrated that they don't move the clocks forward already with so much wasted daylight in the mornings).

Lovely day today. Here's hoping this weather continues so things can dry out a bit

Yup, gained a whole 6 minutes of evening light here so far. But you are right, cloud cover makes a huge difference to how dark or light the evenings feel for the next couple of months. Here's hoping for lots of clear skies in January/February (we deserve a spell of decent weather for a change).

From what I remember without looking anything up: January - Pretty benign February - Had that unseasonably hot spell which wa March - Had that heavy snow event in Manchester which caused chaos during rush hour April/May - Cool-ish, no early summer June - Average, we've had worse in recent years. July - Had the heatwave for a couple of days which was swiftly followed by the awful rains at the end of the month which carried on August - Was this good or poor? Certainly wasn't hot and there was more torrential rain causing problems. September - No Indian summer, rain eased off a bit at first but came back at end of the month October/November - Didn't stop raining December - Average, wet at first but no notable windstorms and improved towards the end I think 2019 is notable for the lack of classic windstorms, instead replaced by low pressure systems coming from odd angles which just sat in one place causing terrible flooding.

It's psychological mostly at this point although we are up by 3 minutes on the darkest evening now! By January we do start to gain 10+ minutes in the evenings per week which can be quite noticeable given typical working hours especially if we have a very grey week followed by a week with clear skies at sunset.

Looking forward to the solstice tomorrow and knowing that things are starting to improve (albeit slowly at first and the mornings still get darker until the end of December). Soon enough it will be February and we will be gaining 4+ minutes of daylight per day.

Pretty much at peak darkness in the evenings now. The sun does not set any later here and evenings soon start to get lighter from about the 13th (albeit very slowly at first). I always see this as a milestone however small it is. Sunrise still get later by another 10 minutes or so and does not reverse until the end of December though.

- Cycling to work in the dark - Cycling home in the dark - Did I mention it's dark?

I love how it rains all day and then the sun comes out just as it is setting...

A bit windy but hardly any rain today. Can live with that. Welsh mountains doing their rainshadow thing (where were they two weeks ago? Slacking on the job?)

Yeah, nothing like two weeks ago when it just rained constantly and the system seemed to sit over us without moving at all. Fairly heavy rain overnight but again not crazy rain like a fortnight ago. Dry by the time I cycled to work and now quite pleasant sitting out in the sun.

Dodgying most of the showers today which makes a nice change to this time a week ago... Quite a pleasant day really, much better than forecast. Tomorrow looks reasonable as well.

Seriously the rain is starting to jaffa cakes me off now. Of course it has to be like this when I have taken 3 days holiday as well...I bet it will be nice tomorrow when I am back at work.

Hate slow moving rain. Every time I look at the radar it seems like I might finally be on the edge of the rain band but then more seems to pop up. And plenty of the country has been mostly dry all day. Really frustrating.

Decent rain shadow in Manchester today. Looks like the current band of heavy rain is mostly going South of us as well.

Don't worry, the poster goes on about it like a broken record. Just wait until it starts getting 'humid'. They don't like the lengthening daylight either.

I agree, so much wasted potential evening light during the last 3-4 weeks. The majority of people work 9-5 hours so why do we have to wait until sunrise is well before 6am before putting the clocks forward again.

Absolutely glorious weather indeed. Spring has truly sprung. Signs of life emerging everywhere you look. I don't care if the start of March turns out to be rubbish weather because this is better than many a grey UK summer day anyway.

Looks like today is going to be a gorgeous day

Only on a weather forum can perfectly pleasant, mild, dry and even sometime sunny weather be described as 'vile', 'ghastly', 'disgusting' and 'horrific'.

Hello Spring

Left work before sunset today. Starting to race ahead in terms of daylight gained per day now, nearly 4 minutes per day now.