Summer8906

I realise I'm not @*Stormforce~beka* but... no it isn't! Admittedly it's better than your part of the world - but typical conditions in Southern Hampshire in July and particularly August are rather cloudy with fleeting sunny intervals, with a cool onshore breeze and occasional drizzle showers. We miss the warmth that places more inland and further east (such as the London area) get, due to maritime influence. Things were better 20-odd years ago when we had more NW-lies (longer land track) and less SW-lies in summer. The deterioration is basically for the same reason as you (the return of the Atlantic) albeit not quite as bad. March-June seems to be our best period on average, though obviously not this year - or last for that matter.

Wimbledon88 So Fort William (?) gets to 22C before most of Southern England has this year. Now that is bonkers.

baddie ... and by late-May it's then only two months to the start of the next autumn, on 1 August.

In Absence of True Seasons True - though I wouldn't call it "wonderful" either! SunnyG At least there was thunder last night, which makes this batch more interesting. But the pervading damp and gloom following the thundery activity is most definitely not. The next front, that clears out this muck, cannot come soon enough!

Andy Bown Yes, that seems to be almost always the case. We were on the edge of a storm last night. Wouldn't say it was dramatic but there was fairly frequent lightning and mostly quiet thunder on and off for about an hour. Probably between 2-3am though didn't check the time. Mostly only steady rain. It looked like it was perhaps over the Fareham / Botley area? Conventional wisdom says that following a storm, fresher and cooler air gets in and there's a rapid clearance. Obviously the synoptics this time don't allow for that. But even if we get a thundery front from the west, it's typically dull and gloomy the day after, rather than a sudden change to fresh and clear air from between west and north. Other climates, including (IMX) Montreal and Northern Greece, do storm clearances much better. Typical pattern there is thunder, a few hours of steady rain, a temp drop and then a very sharp clearance as blue skies move in.

Northwest NI Not sure the weather is particularly wonderful in July or particularly August anywhere in the UK - though I will admit that it is less bad in London and the southeast compared to the west and northwest!

In Absence of True Seasons We really need to get this horrible clag-ridden airmass out of the way. I do gather the weekend will be a bit better, lower-DP airmass moving in which should make it somewhat brighter and we may even get 3 or 4 hours of sunshine per day. Which on recent form is quite good... It's not often that the replacement of a continental airmass by an Atlantic airmass results in drier and brighter conditions, but this time I think that is what's going to happen!

Alderc 2.0 I am actually surprised by that. With the anticyclonic weather forecast after the weekend (if it happens, of course) and lack of cold uppers, I would be expecting around 19C in this area next week and perhaps 21 in London.

Jonnoramo87 Perhaps. Or it could be 2029, and then we get another in 2030 (as happened in 2013 and 2014, following 2006...)

Northwest NI Must be a fair chance May will be an 11th wet month on the trot after this event, which sounds like it could be quite prolonged, and a risk of further wet weather in the next few days. Even if 2 of the 3 remaining weeks after the coming weekend are dry and just one is wet, I suspect we could end up with yet another wet month.

Don I know what you mean in many ways. Cold and wet makes it feel like the last throes of the winter just gone, which psychologically makes you think there are many months of spring and summer ahead. Wet and mild makes it feel like a bad spell in summer, which makes you think autumn isn't too far away. In addition as @markyo says I agree the air feels more unhealthy.

Don I'm very sceptical about hot and dry summers in the future as that hasn't been the direction of travel recently. If we think about such summers since the 70s we have 1975, 1976, 1983, 1984, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1995, 2003, 2006, 2013, 2014, 2018 and 2022 - so they haven't really become more frequent. About once every four years seems to be the typical frequency.

Don I know what you mean. What this evening reminds me of is something like June 2012: yuck. Perhaps that's an improvement on it being autumnal or wintry - but then again perhaps it's not.

Which is an awful shame and, if it does turn out this way, will basically make the UK a country with little in the way of aesthetic pleasure going for it at all. Frequent cloudy, damp weather with temps varying little across the year, no winter to speak of, no beauty in the spring, cloudy and damp summers, and a delayed autumn from the POV of foliage means there's little to get excited about aesthetically, sadly. It's enough to make you nostalgic for the 2010s! (which weren't great, but not this bad!) At least the period from 2015-21 which often had fairly poor summers, had a good number of decent springs and some winters which were vaguely close to normal at times. 2023 and 2024 so far have been notable for poor weather at all seasons, aside from the occasional fine spell.

Jonnoramo87 though 19C is actually about 2-3C warmer than average for the start of May. It's more the eternal cloud and rain and lack of sustained fine weather that's arguably the more urgent problem.

Wynn D Woo It definitely has here. But we are in one of the very mildest areas of the country.

Weather-history Oh god, that is depressing. In our climate, so much of the year is one long, drawn-out slide into (a usually dull, wet and mild) winter. Climates which have decent weather in July, August and September are of course different. The percentage of 2024 in which the weather is good and the nights are not drawing in will be staggeringly low. Roll on 2025!

In Absence of True Seasons Most unfortunately, too. "Spring" 2024 has been absolutely horrific, an aesthetic desert. The mild temps earlier meant everything came out too early, so that during that brief semi-settled interlude between April 15th-22nd, most of the blossoms had gone. They peaked during the hideously gloomy first 10 days of April. Now we've lost the unusual mildness (just when warmer weather becomes more desirable), but it's hideously dull, damp and gloomy. Spring flowering is mostly gone. 2024 is absolutely "the year without a spring", more so than any other year I've lived through. I just hope we don't get a winter-spring period like this one (i.e. extremely mild at first, then cooler when it's too late; extremely dull; extremely wet) for many, many years.

In Absence of True Seasons Yes, I remember this day last year being decent in the afternoon, I remember that because it was the Bank Holiday Monday. The only decent weather all weekend, if I remember right - I seem to remember the Sat and Sun being pretty damp and the Monday morning was a bit dismal too. Cleared up around midday. Then, following a decent Tuesday and Wednesday, the Coronation weekend also had 2 poor days out of 3, of course, including the day itself. danm Interesting, thought this next batch of dull and wet weather was moving from the east (the charts certainly show a low moving in from the east, at any rate) but that appears to not be the case. Whatever, good old south Hampshire gets yet another dull, gloomy and probably wet day to add to the legions of such days since the end of June last year...

Now going really gloomy. Early May always seems to be poor: last time we had fine weather this time of year was, I believe, 2013. It seems to be a definite singularity for the weather to be rubbish at this time of year. The last occasion when it was settled at the end of April and start of May was, I believe, 2013. And before that, only 2011 and 2007 in the 21st century. The difference this year of course is that March and April were also rubbish. I think there's little doubt that this will be the dullest spring since 1994 (the last time we had a spring completely free of any long spells of settled weather), and possibly the wettest since 1983.

AWD Maybe meteorological Autumn will be the driest and sunniest season of this year. We are overdue a good October, the last reasonably decent one was 2018. And the last time we had a truly settled September was 2014. So, maybe this year... And then the coldest winter since 2009/10. That might just about make up for the dross we've endured for the past 10 months...

B87 Very surprising, one would think Edmonton with its extremely continental location would have a much higher frequency of very warm or hot days. Hot air from the Gulf of Mexico can penetrate up there completely unencumbered over the Plains, presumably, without any moderating cool-ocean influence. And cloud amounts are presumably much less, hence more sunshine, hence higher temps even without a supply of hot air. Wonder how the 25C days compare?

Well it's a typical May day for Christchurch, NZ, I guess. (EDIT: the weather is incredibly better in Christchurch, NZ for the next week. Some rain today otherwise fair or sunny, according to Google, and similar temperatures to here). Completely overcast, poor light and might rain later. Could pass for Nov 1st if the leaves weren't on the trees. Same old same old conditions that we've endured for more than 10 months now. So will this be the 11th wet month on the trot and the 8th dull month of the past 11 (Sep, Nov and Jan having reasonable sunshine totals) or might things change?

B87 I am surprised by that. As a continental location with just about zero maritime influence, I would have expected Edmonton to be a few degrees warmer than London. I'd have guesstimated a mean max of about 25C. I guess what happens though is that in Edmonton the majority of days are around 25-27C, but occasional direct arctic northerlies produce a few days of around 12C even in July - and that forces the mean max down. In London not only are hot days rare, but also really cool summer days too. I have spent a couple of weeks in Montreal in summer, which admittedly has considerably more maritime influence than Edmonton. Nonetheless there were one or two days of cool weather (well below 20C) when a northerly got in, even though most days were in the 23-29C range.

*Stormforce~beka* Next full day of sun January 1 2025, the first day of the sunniest January on record, making up for the gloom fest that was 2024. Placing bets on it now!