East Lancs Rain

So… We are going from warm rain on Tuesday and Wednesday to cold rain on Friday and after that. Brilliant.. Just brilliant…

This YouTube channel must be loving all this wet weather… All of their videos are of walks through London, usually in rainy weather… The way they describe it.. I’ve never heard anyone describe rainy weather quite like this before… Anyone would think rainy weather was the best weather imaginable! Quite relaxing to watch but I’m sure @In Absence of True Seasonscan testify, walking through the streets of London in the pouring rain ain’t no fun… ️ Reading the comments was quite funny too! One thing I’ve noticed is that loads of people carry umbrellas in London, whereas up here, it’s rare to see anyone carrying an umbrella, even in torrential rain. People wear raincoats, just not umbrellas. Must be a northern thing I guess.

I agree with it turning colder, but wetter? It has already been very wet here… Mind you, you are in the far south closer to the high pressure. I wouldn’t mind that and it would be a nice change to the very mild, but also very wet and very dull weather we’ve been having since late September, however, Marches that are cold but also dry and sunny are very rare. April 2021 was like that but it was very rare. Usually cold Marches will also be wet and dull, and dry and sunny Marches will also be mild/warm.

Maybe so, but it had a disappointing Spring, a rubbish July and a wet autumn and December. March, July and December were all exceptionally wet. Does anyone know what the rainfall stats were for 2023? I would’ve guessed one of if not the wettest years on record. Felt like it anyway… It has been exceptionally wet and very dull since July with only brief breaks and now it looks like the dull and wet conditions will go on into March!

It would be very unlikely to only be in the low teens if sunny in the summer though, unless it’s in the early morning or late evening, when the sun would be low in the sky anyway. Whereas on a Spring day, conditions like that are very common, and it’s amazing how warm a 15C sunny day can feel in April or May. I guess it’s down to the sun’s strength combined with the fact that in spring my body is still used to winter temps, so 13/14C feels a lot warmer than it would do in July or August. In July and August though, it usually has to be high teens for me to feel comfortable in shorts and a t-shirt. Definitely strange as if it was a month or two later with the same conditions, a lot more people would be dressing for spring. I saw many people wearing shorts and t-shirts during the February 2019 warm spell though, although admittedly it was a few degrees warmer and a lot sunnier (at least here anyway).

I have worn shorts and a t-shirt at that temp in the past in late March/April when it’s been clear blue skies and light winds. But the sun is much stronger by then so it feels warm. This current mild spell has been way too cloudy and the sun is still too weak for those temps to feel warm.

It’s been another very mild day here with a high of 12°C, and it’s actually stayed dry for a change too.. Had some sunshine earlier on, but since mid afternoon it’s been really gloomy. Very light winds though so it has felt as mild as the temp. But it’s proving very difficult to get even one mild, dry and sunny day here this winter. I had one on December, where it was 12°C and mostly sunny all day, but that was a one off. This has been one of the dullest and wettest winters I can ever remember. It hasn’t been able to stay dry for longer than a deep breath and any sunshine has been a “blink and you’ll miss it affair”. There hasn’t even been many days this winter that have been average or cold with clear blue skies all day. Even in a typical mild and wet winter you’d normally get some sunny days with average or below average temps by day and frost at night.

*Stormforce~beka* Aren’t you still in a jumper though until it’s about 25°C?

My preference in summer is for lots of dry sunny weather with temps in the high teens and low 20’s, maybe mid 20’s at a push. However high 20’s and low 30’s feels uncomfortable to me, so if we’re going to get a spell of hot weather, I’d rather take two days of 35°C rather than two weeks of 27-32°C temps. That said, I do not want a summer where it’s mostly cloudy, unsettled and 15-17°C either (unlike some people on the forum). A happy medium is what I want.

I wouldn’t really call it warm, as although it’s been much warmer than average it’s still been around 11-14C and mostly overcast/rainy. I know London and some areas in the South have had a day or two of mid teens and sunshine, but further north it’s just been more of a typical very mild winter spell. It hasn’t been like February 2019 where we’ve had days of wall to wall sunshine and mid to high teens, with people out in shorts and t-shirt’s. That is what I would class as “warm”. In Absence of True Seasons Where I am, the average summer high is only around 19/20°C and as my location does poorly for low sunshine and high rainfall, I prefer summers to be average or warmer than average with above average sunshine and below average rainfall. A warmer, drier and sunnier than average summer here would usually mean a lot of dry, sunny days in the low 20’s, which is probably my favourite conditions in summer tbh. So I tend to wish for a good summer. While I’m not a fan of high temps (above 25C), it’s not too bad if I can sit indoors with the fan on and drink refrigerated water. I don’t really dread a hot summer as up here, the heat is nearly always less extreme than in London, and some summers don’t even reach 30°C here (last summer being one of them). If I lived in London however, where the average summer high is 23/24°C, and where summer months have had average highs in the high 20’s, then I probably would dread a hot summer a lot more, especially if I lived in a warm stuffy flat with no air con. If I lived in London, I would probably wish for a cooler than average summer, if anything, because that would mean an average summer high of around 21/22°C, and the sunshine and rainfall amounts still wouldn’t be too bad, becuase It’s London.

Wow that sure looks great. All that liquid sunshine! And those temperatures.. Lovely and mild. You’d think so but with a strong possibility of an SSW, I’m not so sure… If anything I’d rather have changeable weather with short heat spikes than long periods of less intense heat, gets it over with quicker. And I’m fearing a cloudy and wet 2007/08/09/10/11/12 type summer. Given the CFSV2 model is predicting a quick dissent from El Niño into Lá Nina. The last time that happened was summer 2007… (I think) Oh no, the prospect of a warm and dry summer! Never had one of those before. I don’t know how we’ll cope….

Currently 11°C here but, surprise, surprise. It’s overcast… At least it’s dry though. For now…

It’s 2 am, 8°C outside and I can hear the birds chirping outside.. In February.

It is for that same reason that I’m getting the feeling we could be in for a really bad washout summer this year. A repeat of June 2012, July 2023 and August 2008 on the cards? Let’s hope not.

The Met Office has always been rubbish at long term forecasting, they predicted a “BBQ summer” in 2009 and while June was quite good, July 2009 was a washout… Then at the end of July they predicted August would be a washout as well but it didn’t turn out to be too bad (I think). https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1202982/Met-Office-left-red-faced-Britains-forecast-barbecue-summer-turns-washout.html#:~:text=It was in April that,to confess its shortcomings yesterday.

Nothing springlike here. Just another bog standard mild day. Overcast, 9°C and drizzle. February average here is around 7°C so still a couple of degrees above average.

Probably more like this if it keeps raining lol. You probably jinxed the rest of the winter lol.

Gosh that is a long time to go without rain. It’s a wonder all the plants haven’t died of thirst…

Totally bizzare isn’t yet, but get the same conditions in June and many people would be in shorts and /or t-shirts. At the other extreme I’ve seen people wear next to nothing on a Friday/Saturday night in winter when it’s barely been above freezing…

markyo You would probably love it if todays weather occurred in July or August… It has been like a typical poor summer day here, overcast, high of 14°C, rain on and off. And after the atrocious weather of the last few months the last thing we want is a cold spring… A repeat of Spring 2020 would be lovely. Wouldn’t mind a repeat of April 2021 though as despite being cold it was very dry and sunny and there was still some mild and sunny days.

johncam Still bare trees here. Rain has been on and off this afternoon, currently 12.6°C with 84% humidity. Yes I can imagine 14°C in spring in Scotland must be considered a heatwave lol. It must have been an exceptionally mild winter further south as Gavin Partridge from Northampton on his live stream last night mentioned how long the grass had grown in his garden… Whereas here it is still short.

I have noticed people in my area tend to overdress for the weather a lot of the time, with people wearing thick coats in sub 20C weather in summer a common occurrence, whereas I only usually wear a thick coat between November and March. However I’ve been up to the north east and people tend to dress much lighter there. I was last up there in May/June 2018 and I was right on the coast and it was sunny but only in the low teens with a cold NE breeze coming from off the sea, but most people were dressed like it was a hot summers day. Very strange. I can only think it’s possibly something to do with the damp climate here. People not wanting to be caught out in the rain. I am at the more lightly dressed end of the “dressing for the weather spectrum”, have often just worn a hoodie outside when the temp has been below 10C and worn shorts in spring when it’s been sunny but only 10-13°C.. I do have good circulation though so I tend to feel a lot warmer after walking for a while, especially when the humidity is high I have noticed. I do try and make the most of the weather though, sitting outside in the garden in shorts on sunny days in spring and summer as much as possible, because that kind of weather is in short supply in this part of the world, and come late September or early October, I know the shorts will be packed away for another six months. I think a lot of people are the same, as a 15C sunny day in spring will see the local park quite busy and lots of people in shorts and t-shirts. If I lived in a warmer and sunnier climate however, I would probably take the fine weather more for granted and wait until it got a bit warmer before getting the shorts out.

In Absence of True Seasons Yes the contrast between the second half of February 2019 and the first half of June 2019 was quite remarkable. Feb 2019 had quite a few days that were 12-15°C, dry and sunny, whereas the first half of June 2019 had many days that were 11-13°C, overcast and raining, often all day! It was like they had been swapped around. Regarding the people dressing for the season rather the weather thing, I have noticed this too to some degree. Although I remember seeing people wearing shorts and t-shirts during those exceptionally mild/warm days in Feb 2019. I think as you say, people are just used to wearing summer clothes in summer and winter clothes in winter, and so if we get the odd mid teens day in winter or summer, they’ll still wear the same clothes, but if we were to get a week of mid teens temps in Feb (especially if it was dry and sunny) then people would start dressing more for spring/summer.

I remember I had one day in February 2019 that reached about 17°C with clear blue skies all day. It’s definitely possible here in the right setup.

Cloudy here but dry currently and exceptionally mild, currently at 14°C. I don’t think I’ve seen a day this mild in February since February 2019.