Summer of 95

Ian, What was it like there this morning till about 1pm? Has it been sunny all day, or were you in the cloud that plagued this area until then?

At last it's cleared and is gorgeously sunny, but it could have been so much better Only 17C, the forecasters were out by 4C which in January could mean the difference between whiteout and soggy muck.

Thanks anyway.

Hi Mr Data, You don't by any chance know a CET figure for the period 10 May- 9 June 1995 (give a take a day or two)? I just wonder if that period was actually colder than May 1996. Though dry it had frost, cool days and even snow on May 17th here.

It's clearing now, only about 4/8 cloud. But it's very windy and even if it stays clear the cloudy morning I fear has scuppered any chance of really high temps. If the wind direction changes it could blow all the clag back- it's still gloomy off to the west so we need the wind to stay in the SE.

2005 was like 1995 in that May showed a large temperature range here, from below zero to above 25. The well above average October and cold start to March are other parallels. Shame July and August weren't the same. Regarding "years ending in..." the one that sticks out to me is that years ending in 4 have a disproportionate number of mild Decembers.

Aargh this is annoying! Am I the only one not to have bright blue skies? At 1220 it's 7/8 overcast and 16C, nothing exceptional for October. What a letdown!

Shrewsbury Mostly Cloudy but showing signs of burning off. 15C

The only years i've seen lying (at 0900) snow in November are: 1988 (3 days) 1993 (1 day) 1996 (2 days) Fell on evening of 18th Nov 2004 and settled for a while, but was gone at 0900 next day

Absolutely tipping down now. After a pleasant often sunny day.

Torrential rain with 5-10mm hail at Sutton Coldfield, W Mids around 1700 BST. Was already flooding roads in 15 minutes. Heavy rain too in Telford area at 1745, some impressive anvils. Look dark towards Stafford and south to Birmingham/Wolverhampton too. Not currently raining in Shrewsbury but seems to have been recently.

I started a thread about February 1994 a couple of months ago in this section. 1993 was a superb autumn, with frost/fog in abundance and although not particularly dry was much drier than the recent monsoon autumns, especially October. October had some hard frosts here, it didn't snow but several nights got well below freezing. Although the first 10 days or so of November were unexciting things soon changed, the frost returning and at least one day remained below freezing. I remember football being cancelled because the pitches were frozen solid at midday. A light overnight snowfall meant Sunday 21st was the first "day of snow lying" in Shrewsbury since February 1991. Only a cm or so, but the temperatures in this spell were impressively low for autumn. December was very mixed, some heavy rain and flooding (much of town centre underwater at one point) and a snow shower on Christmas Day too. January was mostly mild and boring, apart from the first week when there was some more frost. February had 2 separate snow events that I covered in the February 1994 thread.

Ah yes I remember this day. The summer of 95 was still fresh in my memory, September had just passed me by as a few weeks of mediocre weather. Then this day- it was like summer had arrived all over again having hardly left us. I really did go back into the mode I'd adopted from late June through August- shorts, sunglasses, doors open and fans on. It felt like getting back to normal rather than being an exception, I had got that used to hot dry sunny weather. The rest of October continued warm and dry too.

Just checked the chart for 1927- what a horrid set-up for late June! Deep low in the North Sea NE of Scotland, feeding strong cyclonic N/Nw-lies across the country-seems like anyone who saw that was very lucky indeed.

Thanks, is that a 00Z chart or from the time of the eclipse? (I know it's on there, but it's illegible) If the latter, the front seems too far away to start affecting the SW and strangely I don't recall any rain from it (in contrast to a couple of days earlier when it hammered down as I was driving there).

Just checked Wetterzentrale and it shows a low filling in the near Atlantic, with a high to the east and general SSE'lies. Must have been the leading edge of a slow moving warm front or something then? I was surprised to find the chart looking like that, I remember it as being a featureless grey cover (stratiform sounds right then) and not very warm for May. Do you know what caused the thick grey cloud over most of Devon/Cornwall on 11/8/99? that as I recall was more Cu/Sc type, and it didn't produce any rain as I recall. That was so frustrating as the rest of the UK was largely fine.

The 1994 eclipse was the first one I remember, as you say the conditions then were awful (Did anywhere in mainland Uk see it?). Total cloud cover, and rather cool for the time of year. 1996 wasn't much better, just a few breaks in the cloud (I was stuck indoors so couldn't try for a view anyway- it was a Saturday IIRC). 1999 in S Devon was very disappointing, day started fine at 8am but clouded over totally by 10, despite being right by the sea. May 2003 here in Shropshire though was a cracker. Worth waiting 23 1/2 years for. I stayed up all night and drove up Lyth Hill just S of Shrewsbury to see it. About 10 mins after sunrise it emerged through the horizon murk,the red morning sun with a huge bite taken out of it, with the refraction effect it looked bigger and being so low could be looked at momentarily without eclipse glasses. Not a cloud in the sky that day- how different from 1994 and 1999.

Heavy rain in Shrewsbury, got steadily heavier as I drove home from near Birmingham. Yuck.

My thoughts again: Slightly above average, excellent June especially but badly let down by the period mid-July to mid-August which prevented it being the joint best (with 2003) since 1995. Temp: somewhat above average despite the cold days in late July and cool ones in August. Notable lack of warm sticky nights. Rain: below average, despite excellent thunderstorms in the early part. Sun: very very mixed. Some days glorious, others dire. Better than 1998, 2000 or 2002 by a long way however.

Beautiful warm sunny day in Shrewsbury (just 1/8 cirrus) after cold murky start. There was a lot of fog along trhe M6 toll road north of Birmingham around 8-9 this morning.

Just about to leave and I noticed it's raining hard again. Heaviest rain on radar looks now to be just SW of Manchester. The rain hasn't cooled things down- it's still awfully muggy.

Very grey, muggy and humid, though rain now stopped again. Main rainbelt from Wales to the Humber on the radar that's been affecting us, seems to be moving very slowly northwards.

Raining rather heavily, again. Sun tried to emerge around noon when it was also muggy, but has vanished. What a shoddy forecast!

Shrewsbury After cloudy dry start now raining, and is rather heavy despite not initially seeming so (looks almost like drizzle but is soaking everything). Not cricket weather

Iamtoohot, 1993 was the last proper autumn here. Although that year had a shoddy mild winter and very poor summer, oh boy did autumn make up for it! October had lots of days which started with hard frost (a couple of which I haven't seen the likes of in recent Februaries) and thick fog, then cleared to leave bright, invigorating sunny afternoons. In addition we had some windy days, and some warm sunny ones. November continued in much the same vein, until mid-month when it turned cold. On many occasions the ground was still frozen at noon, which we never seem to get in January or February now. On Sunday 21st I woke up to a dusting of snow- nothing special except it was in autumn and was the first day of snow lying here since February 1991. December had every weather imaginable- floods, gales, sun and a snow day on the 25th. The following February reintroduced the word "winter" to my vocabulary after an absence of 3 years. September? that's summer.