Philipsfd

It's easy to think that but if you take the previous 22 years it's very mixed as a whole; '95, '97, '98, '03, '07, 2012 and last year clearly had better weather in August than in the early part of summer. You could also make a case for '96, '02 '05 and '09. Only '99 '04, '06, '08, 2010, 2013 and '14, before this year, seem to have had a clearly inferior August.

What was the CET of both June '95 and June 2010? Both years had a warm second half of June and of course both had a very cold late December.

Reading through the July '99 thread and how it often isn't well remembered, it made me think of other summer months which seem to have an unfair tag on them. I've chosen two which stick out a bit; August '98 and August '07. I have very fading memories of '98 now but the met office summary for the month paints a positive picture of lots of sunshine, albeit rather on the cold side. Does anyone remember August '98 in more detail? It's a similar theme for August '07 in the met office summary; above average sunshine; below average rainfall; but again on the cool side. I can remember this month in more detail, can recall plenty of sunny days and a short, modest hot spell at the beginning of the month. It seems these two months are a little underrated, perhaps because the June and July of both years were both so bad, or perhaps because they weren't hot. Are there any other summer months within the last 25 years which are perhaps underrated, even if they weren't spectacular? July and August 2000 perhaps?

If simply based on 10 year trends then it doesn't bode well! 1988, '98 and '08 were all rather poor summers! August 2004 was quite astonishing really, in the North West there was a spell when a thunderstorm was almost a nightly occurrence! It seemed to last for most of the month from what I remember, along with a lot of rain.

I wouldn't go that far in terms of the North West. Last August was decent here, again with one short hot spell around 23rd-24. The rest of the month was a mixture of fairly warm and sunny days here and there, interspersed with a fair number of dull days (the first week and then the run up to the Bank Holiday weekend were good example of this) and a couple of absolute stinkers (19th-20th). I'd rank it with 2013 for recent years. As I say I also remember 2007 and 2009 both having a reasonable August.

Last year was fairly decent to be fair...2007, 2009 and 2013 were ok too I guess.

In the North West I'd say we've had a slightly better July than we had last year, with a bit more improvement on 2015. But it isn't hard considering both July 2015 and July 2016 were rather poor months (each with an intense but short hot spell). Compared to last year I'd say the only noticeable July improvement is the sunshine total, but this still feels less than the sunshine we had in May and June. A good way off 2006, '13 and '14 but better than 2007-09 and 2011, '12 and '15. I'd rank this as similar to 2010 and last year, albeit slightly better. There were comparisons with 1995 towards the end of June, I guess one similarity is a lack of thunder!

Go back another 10 years to '95 and I guess that June wasn't too dissimilar either. A fairly cool and dull first half before the clouds broke at around the 20th/21st and the summer didn't look back.

It feels a bit like the hot spell we had in late June 2005, minus the thunderstorms so far. In fact the month as a whole feels a bit like June '05, with the unsettled first half.

About the 2007-12 spell, was 2009 really a bad summer? I know it was a bit of a washout in the statistics but didn't most of the rain come in the second half of July? I remember the first half of July and most of June being fairly decent and whilst August wasn't brilliant, it was sunnier than 2008 (and 2010?) and warmer than both 07 and 08.

How do this compare with the brief late June-early July heatwaves of 2009, '11 and '15?

Better than 2000, or even the best since 1995?

Summer '01 doesn't seem to be as often remembered as most of the ones around it. What are people's memories of this summer? From my vague memories, I seem to remember it being fairly similar to last year and perhaps 2005; roughly average temperatures, sunshine and rainfall, with occasional short hot spells every so often.

I'll go for a good mixture of 1997 and 2007... January: Very cold but settled and sunny start, then turning and remaining mild and wet after the first week or so, with a gale-storm towards the end of the month. February: Turning colder at the start of the month again, but remaining unsettled with heavy snow over a couple of days, the heaviest falls since January 2010 and similar to the February 2007 and 2009 snowfalls. Very mild, dry and dull second half of the month. March: Dry, dull and warm conditions continue for the first couple of weeks, the sun then breaks to give an incredibly sunny third week before a return to cloudier weather for the final week. Dry and mild throughout. (Again similar to 2007 and 2009). April: An intense warm front from the south continues the theme of dry weather and brings with it an incredible two-week heatwave over the middle two weeks, coinciding with Easter. Unbroken sunshine and record-smashing temperatures, the average breaking 11 degrees and a high of 32 degrees being recorded in London. Turning cooler but remaining dry and sunny in the last week. Puts 2007 and 2011 in the shade. May: A dry, warm and sunny first week signals the end of the settled weather as Atlantic fronts break the high from then on. Very wet and dull for the remainder of the month. June: A brief high in the first week bridges the Atlantic systems, making for a very warm and dry first week. Turning increasingly humid with thunderstorms preceding a very wet remainder of the month. Not quite as wet as 97 and 07 but in a similar region. Temperatures around average. July: Wet, cloudy and cool with Atlantic weather dominating. A warm front in the final few days brings a hot and dry end of the month and a change in the theme of the summer. August: The warm weather continues at the start of the month with the hottest temperature of the summer being recoded on the 5th (30.5 C), but not breaking the April high.. Convections then begin to dominate after the hot first week, making for a very humid, warm, wet and thundery remainder. September: Settling down, fairly close to average temperatures and fairly dry throughout. Reasonably sunny. October: Very much a continuation from September; fairly dry and mild, but with some night frosts in the final week. Average sunshine. November: Dry, mild and fairly dull (like 2007) December: Another mild one, but turning wetter in the first two weeks. A cooler and very foggy third week (aka 2006) before another Christmas Eve gale-storm brings about a very wild and damp Christmas period, with a big thunderstorm on New Years Eve to see in the new year.