Wetterfrosch

Yesterday's 'rumblings' were very doubtless the longest lasting for a long time. Numerous times, thunder - combined with showery rain - was audible from late lunchtime to about midnight, as if the god of thunder wanted to make up for this year's shortcomings. All cloud to cloud lightning, mostly not even visible, with the typical rolling sound to follow. Seems that following tonight's rain we can look forward to a couple of fine sunny days Mo/Tue, ideal for tidying the garden up and I'd better protect my lettuce which is still bountiful out there - something else I haven't achieved before. So far, I quite like this autumn with its varied weather conditions, much better than the usual and seemingly never ending dross of low cloud, wind and drizzle/rain.

Wow, a rare rumble of thunder just occurred, something we have seen very little of in our valley this year. Earlier this morning a short but very potent downpour yielded 9 mm of rain. Certainly extremely changeable today with sunny skies being rapidly replaced by dark threatening looking clouds and showers and back again.

I could get quite used to the pattern of heavy overnight rain quickly changing to clear skies, giving rise to gorgeous sunrises followed by dry and bright days as happened again. 22 mm within a few hours helps to catch up with the overall rainfall deficit to date this year. And temperatures also still keeping up reasonably well. I can remember many much more miserable autumns in the past here in Snowdonia.

I personally much prefer a cold, frosty start to winter, with or without snow (what does that stuff look like again ? So long since I've seen any!) For the sake of our possible energy shortages I just hope that any cold spells won't be too prolonged this coming season.

It's certainly been a soggy 24 hours, with 37 mm in my rain gauge this morning. Still compares pale to Capel Curig's 72 mm (to 7am). Imagine all that water gushing down the streams and ravines in Snowdonia - must be quite a spectacle. Luckily the wind wasn't too wild in the end and actually reflected the MO computer output very well which had downgraded the highest gusts for my area from 49/50 to 40/41 mph in the evening. Better looking afternoon ahead, so use the time for my weekly food shopping - Joy of Joys, ha,ha!

September going out like a lion! Managed to get my two labs out before the worst set in. Heavy rain and some very strong gusts now. Wouldn't be surprised if my runner bean contraption took a hit with all that weight still on it. On the plus side, the frontal rain should move through fairly swiftly by teatime with winds veering WSW and easing somewhat. With better conditions expected for the weekend I should be able to lift my potatoes at last, following a bumper crop of apples already home and dry.

I wish i could give a qualified answer. With so many factors that go into the equation, some enhancing each other while others work in the opposite direction, stratospheric water vapour is only one of numerous pieces in the big puzzle. On the one hand, it traps outward radiation from the surface but also reflects or dissipates some incoming radiation from the sun. Haven't found a thread specific to the Tonga volcano yet, just a general one largely discussing the Icelandic ones. I came across it on severe-weather.eu. Being so far away, it might well have a negligible effect here in Europe. Your fruity liqueurs sound interesting. Of the 36 lb of blackberries picked this year, 22 lb have been turned into 10 gallons of wine now merrily fermenting and the rest is currently frozen and expecting to either be processed into jam once our cooking apples are picked or go into pies, fools or cordial over the autumn and winter months ahead. We too have a Katie apple tree which I just relieved of it's load days ago. I do love their colour and taste but this year they turned out generally smaller despite all my efforts to keep them watered. Only disadvantage is that they don't keep too well. Rhubarb still plentiful but with thinner stems than normal. Will likely be stewing much of it and freeze portion wise for later in the year.

That's more like it - persistent rain for a few hours, quite heavy at times, yielded 16 mm. Garden will be happy and so am I. Quite like this set-up of overnight rain to be followed by sunny skies in the morning with temperatures still very respectable for the time of year, both day and night. More showery/thundery rain expected by teatime, so better take dogs out in time. Wondering now what winter might bring as there is speculation as to what effect the Tongan volcano at the beginning of the year might have with huge amounts of water vapour being deposited into the southern stratosphere.

Similarly here in the NW. Woken about 5.20 by rather wild winds with strong and very sudden gusts. Plant pots rolling around in drive and this morning I found a few flat pieces of concrete landed between house and shed which will need investigating as to where they came from. Rain not much of an issue, just 5 mm since yesterday. Lacking my own weather station atm, a look at the MO computer forecast for next village brought up 50 mph gusts for two consecutive hours, then quickly receding to 33 mph and 23 mph by late morning with sunny skies. Can believe the first and confirm the latter as it now looks so innocent out there you would never know that such turbulent weather was possible only hours before. And yes, we will see more of this as we go further into autumn. At least, with the temps holding up, the garden should produce decent crops. Amazingly, my runner beans and sweet peas stayed upright and did not keel over as I had feared whilst we were in the midst of it.

Very heavy dew here this morning and with the sun still being low it made all the cobwebs on the gorse and high grass show up in spectacular fashion, something that I would normally expect in October. Autumn is definately coming. With the 10 mm rain measured yesterday morning (Hurray!!!) this should have been of some help to plant life.

Most memorable about today's weather was the humidity, reaching 86 percent at midday with a temperature of 21 C and sunshine breaking through thick but mainly low level cloud, squeezing out a little drizzle on a couple of occasions. Do i dare hope for some 'proper' rain tonight/tomorrow as promised on ITV and indicated by the MetO? With so little rain for weeks (4 mm being the highest 24 hour total so far this month) I am almost amazed that nobody has proposed a hose pipe ban for the NW. Some birches and willows obviously suffering lack of water and getting yellow and brown and the water pressure is clearly down of what I'm used to. Just amazed the blackberries did so well in all this (over 29lb picked already, although generally smaller and less sweet compared to previous years), loads of wine and jam to look forward to.

Look no further than the Welsh name for July which is Gorffennaf, meaning end of summer. And yes, I do consider August the onset of early autumn, even though it is still very warm, often muggy with some of the highest nighttime minimum temperatures. Some plants begin to 'look tired (like my mangetout peas having produced prolifically since early July) and early trees begin to acquire their autumn colours or have another shot like oaks with what I call their Lammas growth with initially very red leaves on a second growth, apart from acorns and beech masts now showing up nicely. Other than that, still waiting here for any meaningful rain which may (or the way it's going may not) arrive tonight/tomorrow when I have an outdoor job planned. Bank holiday weekend looks decent enough, just hope some rain will arrive here before that, especially with the first 10 days or so of September promising to be mainly fair and dry too.

Hmmm, how typical! Not really surprised to see great expectation turned to damp squib yet again. Just 1.7 mm yesterday morning after a couple of hours of light rain and another 1 mm this morning after bouts of drizzle from low cloud. As so often, all the action further south and east. Hopefully Thursday's frontal system might bring more substantial rain. MetO fax chart has occlusion point just off the Lleyn peninsula at 12 Z so there is still hope yet for the NW. Weirdly enough, their text forecast has it still dry but the computer output for Penygroes already goes for heavy rain by lunchtime. Not the first time that man and machine clash - will see who the winner will be this time!

Similarly here! Went to our 'home beach' on Friday night to watch the full moon rise over the North Wales mountains. Scores of people still around on arrival but most eventually left as it was getting dark, except for a few who had settled round small camp fires (all on pebbly ground, I hasten to add!). The spectacle was well worth the trip, with the best part being to see the sky over Nantlle Ridge light up in gorgeous reddish colours with the moon eventually and very slowly appear from behind the mountain. Thanks, dear Cirrus clouds, for making it so memorable!

Certainly a night to remember! Went to the beach at Dinas Dinlle to watch the full Super Moon rise over the Nantlle Ridge. Most memorable was the red glow appearing over the ridge just prior to Mister Moon sticking his head very slowly out. Didn't catch sight of any meteors though. Temp actually went up during that time from 21C to 24C as the breeze had picked up and mixed the inversion layer up in the process. By now, very few places to hide from the heat, only our front rooms with thick slate walls offering relief. Just hope the Welsh rivers won't suffer the same fate like the Loire or the Rhine.

If you have slate on your roof then they will be handling hotplates in the afternoon on which they could fry eggs. The return to more pleasant temperatures seems guaranteed now but with the rainfall being largely convective in nature you might just miss the worst. I much prefer a fair few hours of persistent medium intensity rain over half an hour of black skies and a downpour so intense that the rain runs over the gutters and down the windows. Hope you all get what you wish for next week. Heading for 29C now after a low of 16C this morning and the blackberries still doing better then I feared at first with some really good spots producing some fine specimens. What we also have this year is an abundance of little yellow plums (mirabella) which i had no idea we had in the valley. They must have been planted when the nearby abandoned slate quarry was landscaped in the 70s along with a fair number of cherry trees but birds always have those first, even green.

Yes, it seems gardeners are 'condemned' to hard labour for the rest of the week. Doesn't happen too often to get such a long run of 14/15 hours of daily sunshine in August - whatever happened to good old dreary British holiday month with low cloud and drizzle all day? Gone on holiday, I suspect. Absolutely, when our fortune finally changes I for once won't complain. The extent of these desert like conditions over most of Europe is astonishing. Even in Romania some monks were so desperate that they went into the fields and actively pray for rain. On my recent trip to Germany I found nothing but parched soil and grain fields rather stunted and struggling. We ought to indeed make the most of this week summery outlook before the change comes to more cloudy and cooler conditions that seems to firm up now for the beginning of next week. How much rain this may entail we will have to see. South Wales looks like it would benefit from it but how far north the showers travel i wouldn't dare to guess.

Quite so!!! During the dry, hot summers of the early 2000's we decided to chop off the end of the bathroom pipe outside and collect grey water in a disused 5 gallon fermentation bin which fits nicely underneath. Since then it has done a lot of good to our fruit bushes, apple trees and ornamental shrubs and trees in pots. Storage solutions are indeed vital which also applies to solar energy.

I must say most of the berries still need a little longer here as well but each day I find more patches with suitable 'candidates', hence my confidence to get going by the weekend following the next two days' rain and subsequent sunshine. Mind you, my location is a lot lower than yours with the valley floor at just 100 m ASL which will make a big difference. Won't even be the first one out as on this mornings dog walk i spotted two local families already employing their kids as fruit pickers.

Quite remarkable rainfall statistics that the MetO has issued today. As for my own location, the tally came in at 83.5 mm in my garden, 63 mm in the last week alone. Having recorded rainfall since 2003, this amounts to 76 percent of the average over the past 19 years. The spread is quite staggering though, ranging from just 25 mm in 2005 and 2006 to 259 mm in 2010. The year's total to date yielded 598 mm which is 77 percent of normal rainfall. Makes me wonder if we will get a really soggy autumn to make up for it? For now, another wet night and day to come before drying up again and me heading out over the weekend to start picking gallons worth of blackberries over the weekend.

Big relief here this morning. Prolonged if mostly light rain produced 22.9 mm in my garden. - a good start. A little more this next couple of days will be very welcome before the next dry and warm spell arrives on Tuesday.

Well, just as I feared - any rain fragmenting with just patches of light rain left. Has been damping here on and off through the morning, just about managing to wet the drive. Still keeping hope out for some more meaningful wetness tonight though. Apart from the garden I'm concerned that the abundance of blackberries out there might shrivel and I might not get the 20lb or so I need, half for my wife for jamming and the rest for me to turn into wine. @snefnug Living in an elderly house I have had my own share of leaks which is what has me on edge each autumn/winter when the big tap in the skies turns on and keeps running for several months and the wind god howls down from the mountains and sends the rains horizontal. Anyway, your part of Wales is no less beautiful, if different, but I have been only driving through it once. Enjoy the harvest the slugs leave you!!

Lucky you - hope to get some of the wet stuff tomorrow, MetO output for my area seems to think so although even those big guys with all their equipment don't always get it right in summer. Touch wood (or tree)!!!

Same here, just a few drops evaporating on impact, then sunny again and temp up to 29 C. I know how i will be spending my evening.

Thanks for the welcome Sky Full! Narrow band of thundery rain now approaching from the Lleyn, we'll have to wait and see how much, if any, will reach he ground. Could do with a good soaking for the garden or else it's another evening spent with hosepipe & watering can.