[Autumn 2018]

26 minutes ago, audiotech said:

26.3C, wow smashed the date record for the 13th October then. It should stay warm well into the evening/night, until the rain moves in.

Incredible that this same strength of sunshine was during Beast from the East earlier this year. We've experienced the full range of temperatures possible with the sun at this angle.

Also now the warmest day on record in the UK for this late in the year and latest 26c in the year.

[Autumn 2018]

Warmest October 13th on record, 25.4c at Weybourne.

[Snow & Ice coverage in the Northern Hemisphere Winter 2018/19]

 

[Autumn 2018]

Already 23c in London (over an hour ago when posting this). The temperature record in the UK for October 13th is 25.3c. If we surpass 25.9c, it will be the warmest temperature in the UK on record for this late in the year. In the same year, 29.1c was recorded on April 19th...... 2018 you are absolutely amazing I swear, you don't give up!

[Your Deepest Snow Record]

Did not measure it (wouldn't have been able to anyway due to drifts) but here's the deepest snow I've received (my front garden on 2 March 2018) whilst the second one is of a neighbour's garden.

[Best and worst winters]

On 09/10/2018 at 20:31, Philipsfd said:

What made 2000-01 so much better than the following year? There was the snowy spell between Christmas and New Year, but other than that I seem to remember mainly mild weather. Can remember a lot of sunny weather in February and a sunny and cold spell in early March.

It was an amazing Winter considering its time - a long period of largely forgettable or mild Winters from 1997 to 2008. The end of February and early March brought severely cold weather including the March record low maximum before 2018 (and one of the few Marches to reach a minimum of -20c in the UK). There was a blizzard on February 27th for parts including here in the east of Ireland. January was frosty. There was the snowy and cold spell at the end of December which you mentioned. I was only 1 month old in December 2000  so can only go off of stats.

[Autumn 2018]

21 hours ago, Bullseye said:

Hi all, some incredible temperatures around today think up here in Glasgow was around 20c. 

When was the last time we reached 24c+ from 10th October onwards? As you would expect higher temps of 25c plus seemed to occur around start of month  (2011 for example). 

Not sure about the last time so to speak but here's the records for each date of October in the UK:

[Winter 2009/10 memories]

On 18/07/2018 at 21:17, Leo97t said:

Which was better for you guys. The mid December to mid January 2009/2010 cold spell or December 2010?

No comparison there here in Dublin, December 2010 was colder and snowier, got down to Dublin's all time (since known records began at Phoenix Park in the 1830s I think it was) low of -15c on Christmas Day - perfect timing. Constant streamers most days, I remember every single day like yesterday. Woke up on the morning of November 27th 2010 to find my garden and neighbourhood with snow everywhere and blue skies. It was wonderfully perfect. The next day was the exact same and Dublin got down to its lowest November temperatures on record (so did Ireland at -11.5c beating 1919's long standing record of -11.1c). Further streamers occurred on November 29th to December 2nd. November 30th particularly stands out to me as a completely overcast day with consistent snow falling. I was in school and was sent home early then my school closed for the week. The snow stopped for a few days then came back on the 7th as a cold front reintroduced bitterly cold air (after a relatively milder but still very cold weekend of the 4th/5th) and had a severe frost on the 8th with blue skies. The milder period then came but the second freeze occurred bringing record breaking low temperatures again completely smashing previous records for Dublin and Ireland. I had streamers coming off the Irish Sea on the 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd. It didn't seem as amazing to me at the time as the first spell at the end of November (which is still my preferred one out of the two to this day) as I was probably just used to it by that stage. How stupid was I to take it all for granted. 

[Best and worst winters]

3 hours ago, Weather-history said:

2001-02, your best, seriously? Why?

Even December 2001 wasn't especially brilliant, December 2010 massacres that in terms of cold alone. As for January and February 2002, after mid January, it was nothing but raging zonality, often very mild with only very occasional polar maritime blasts.

He put it as 5th best, not #1 best. December 2001 was the sunniest on record.

Mine:

Best

2010-11: No other competition comes even close to this. Among the sunniest on record, even February was sunny here compared to many. -10c was achieved on more than 5 days through December in Ireland, same with ice days including Ireland's record low max temperature for any month of -9.8c on the 21st. The December record low for Ireland was smashed quite a few times from -14.8c on Dec 13 1961 to -17.5c on Dec 25 2010. January had a lot of frost too and was another sunny month. Easily the best and such a nostalgic Winter to me that was followed by my favourite Spring I've experienced too - 2011.

Worst

2012-13: Quite a controversial opinion of mine. A lot of frustration this Winter with me missing out on not only the March snowfalls largely, also the January snowfalls. It was just a damp and unremarkably cool season that I wish I could forget and erase from my memories.

[How would you assess Summer 2017?]

22 hours ago, Philipsfd said:

Similar to 2016 as well?

Much prefer Summer 2016 over Summer 2017 although 2016 had its big issues too, namely the sunshine. Whilst I had a large number of 20c+ days in 2016, there was rarely a sunny day due to persistent humid southwesterlies. The second half of August improved on the sunshine though here.

[How would you assess Summer 2017?]

Absolutely rubbish even as early as late June here in eastern Ireland though some people suggest it got bad only from mid-July onwards. Late June was cold and wet following a notable warm/hot spell from the 17th-21st then the first half of July was very cloudy here with relatively warm temperatures. The second half of July was wetter and cooler but far superior in terms of sunshine. August was extremely disappointing, little to no warmth, unremarkably cool temperatures, average rain, little sun, yuck. I dislike Summer 2017 if you could not tell. I prefer Summer 2015 over it for crying out loud and that's saying something because I loathe July 2015.....

[Autumn 2018]

Provisionally, September 2018 recorded 115% of the average sunshine for England with 158.2 hours of sunshine so does not fall into the top 10 as shown above. @BlueSkies_do_I_see

https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2018/10/01/september-statistics/

[What did you think of Summer 2018?]

I am only young so the only "classic" Summers that I've experience are 2003, 2006, 2013 and 2018. I can't remember 2003 as I was only two years of age. 2006 I remember very vividly and it felt like endless heat or sunshine whilst on holidays in a mobile. July 2006 was my favourite Summer month I have experienced so far. 2013 I found alright, July was stunning but don't know, something just makes it not a favourite of mine for some reason; I preferred July 2014 over July 2013, maybe because I did more in 2014. Summer 2018 until August was easily my favourite because of the almost constant sunshine (June 2018 was Dublin's third sunniest June on record and one of the sunniest months on record) and perfect feel to the weather. It never got too warm here because of the sea breezes I had. Therefore, it was absolutely perfect..... until August came in like the usual damp squib it is. August wasn't terrible like 2011 but it was extremely boring; little rain, little sun, no remarkable temperatures after the first week here. 

This was one of my favourite pictures I took during this Summer at Howth Head on 30th June. 

May to July was probably among the best you could find in this country though for this part of Ireland, it was slightly beaten by 1989 going by the stats due to July 1989 being sunnier and warmer than July 2018 here.

[Least favourite weather events]

20 hours ago, reef said:

Aside from the usual winter 2013/14 which was the only completely snowless winter here I'll have to go for the two cold spells at the end of February and mid-March this year.

Two potent easterlies with sub -15C 850hPa temps which should be the best setup for bucketloads of snow here and we barely had 0.5cm both times. In both events the showers just completely missed us to the north and south. It was perhaps the biggest disappointment with the weather I can remember.

Meanwhile, this was my area on 2 March and Kildare on the same day. The east of Ireland was spoiled for snow during that spell. Could have shared with a lot of people and still have a good dusting. What you described sounds like March 2013 here.

[Least favourite weather events]

On 23/09/2018 at 14:39, Snowyowl9 said:

Is that because you missed out on the snow or it was too cold,I`m thinking the first one,I don`t know what Ireland got that march.

Kind of a combination of both along with the fact it was so dull. The maximum daily sunshine I had throughout the entire month was only 6 hours which was a new record low for Dublin (using Dublin Airport records). March is a time of year when I hope for calm, Spring days with good sunny spells and severe frost overnight (2010 and 2011 were perfect examples here). March 2013 was just persistently cold, wet, dull, awful mess. I was really unlucky in terms of the snow; I barely got anything in January 2013 either. March 2018 gave me A LOT of snow though.

[Autumn 2018]

37 minutes ago, BlueSkies_do_I_see said:

How close are we to this September being the sunniest on record?  Does anyone have a link to the sunshine record for September in the UK, and if Sept 2018 if anywhere near beating it?

They have not released (provisional) stats yet for September. You can view the sunniest Septembers on record (back to 1929) for different regions of the UK here: https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets

Here's a table I did of Heathrow, UK and England's top 10 sunniest Septembers.

[Least favourite weather events]

March 2013.... no other competition even comes close to that for me. 

[Top 5 Best and worst springs?]

Don't have 5 on each side but my favourites and least favourite:

Favourites

2011 - Lots of sunshine and lots of warmth. March was one of the sunniest on record and April was the warmest on record.

2010 - Like 2011 lots of sunshine with many nights of severe frosts. Long dry spells in early March and mid-April. A very warm spell near late May which contained my warmest May day on record.

Least favourite

2013 - Cold, dull and wet. Yuck! Worst season of my life and I particularly loathe March.

All the rest are pretty mediocre for Springs as a whole - individual months like May 2017 were stunning though. Spring 2018 belongs in the interesting category for me than favourite. 

[Autumn 2018]

The JMA is not ideal for delivering cold to the UK and Ireland. Looks like a knife edge to me between a 2009-10 or a 2013-14, closer to a 2013-14 type scenario of all the cold being delivered to North America.

[How will Solar Minimum affect weather and climate?]

QBO vs CET for every Winter from 1949-50 to 2017-18. Easterly QBO years relatively favour colder Winters especially to severe levels but notice 1978-79 had very weak westerly QBO. Late 2010 had quite strong westerly QBO too.

[Stratosphere and Polar Vortex Watch]

5 hours ago, sundog said:

Someone put this up on an Irish weather forum. I think it's the ECM seasonal update. Looks very nice.

I wonder who that was. Nice to see you read my posts on other sources Sundog! 

But seriously, a mad update from the ECM (I thought last month's was epic enough for cold and snow!) with a lot of blocking especially during December and January on this September update.

I'd like to point out a comparison between the ECM update of November 2017 (from Gav's Weather vid) for Winter 2017-18 vs what actually happened.

Uncanny resemblance here. Displaced Azores High. Troughing through UK/Ireland into Europe. Blocking to the north and northeast of Europe. You'll never get a complete perfect match but I think this was amazing for a long range forecast. Will see how the ECM fares this Winter. Weak Polar Vortex as suggested by the CFS and its ensembles would suggest the possibility of what the latest ECM long range update shows.

[2002 worst year for weather?]

2002 was and still is the wettest year on record in Dublin with scenes like below (taken on 1 February 2002 when strong winds and heavy rain coincided with a high tide) in February and November 2002. Other than that, it just seemed like a dull and mild fest, little cold. Yuck!

[What would you like to see in autumn 2018]

A repeat of Autumn 2010 in every way from an unremarkable, wet and sunny September to a relatively cool but very sunny October with some notable frosts to a beauty of a November that contains a severe cold and snowy end. Or a 1919.

[Stratosphere and Polar Vortex Watch]

8 hours ago, Mattias said:

I tried to add some more members from recent cfs runs (all members from last week) and its quite clear that according to cfs  the vortex will get a tough start of the season. Interesting to see such an impressive signal and will be interesting to see how it verifies. 

Sorry to be slightly off topic but where did you get this from by any chance (or the ensemble data)? It would be very appreciative, thanks.

[Autumn 2018]

6 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

and el nino which may scupper things?

If El Nino even occurs. El Nino Modoki would be good though.