Summer of 95

Thanks anyway.

Hi everyone, Is there any way I can "ignore" topics that don't interest me, so they don't show up when I surf the site? I know you can do this on several newsreaders, and you can do it here to individual users- and topics? PS My main target is the "General Banter" gibberish. Thanks.

Had quite thick mist at 0900, and was feeling decidedly chilly. By 0930 it had completely burnt off to leave bright blue sky. Lovely.

Hearty congratulations to Mr and Mrs M and the new arrival. Hope the little'un grows up to like sun, sun, storms and snow :blink:

Clear and sunny, just a few patches high cloud/contrails. Noticed a lot of dew and condensation this morning.

Mostly sunny, some cirrus and cumulus. Warm but less muggy than yesterday. PS I think it's still summer for a few more weeks

Rained turned heavy 5-6pm, now eased a little, Very, very muggy but only a few rumbles and no lightning seen yet.

Rain stopped, but sky still very threatening. Havent seen any lightning yet but there was some thunder. Looking at the radar the main rain area is just NE of me, but there's more moving in from N Wales. Would like a good electrical storm to see one of the most boring Augusts in my memory go out with a bang (not expecting a repeat of 19 June though!)

Just heard 1 massive rumble, surprised everyone. No rain yet...

Clouded over now, but medium/high level. I thought I saw Ac cast as it developed too. Still got to 25C though. If I can't have sunshine let's have some thunder, haven't had any in August so far!

Very hazy, patches of high cloud around but sunny and quite humid. Thunder this afternoon?

Certainly did in Shrewsbury- I mentioned it earlier in the thread. Where did you find that radar? I remember sitting here looking at it on Christmas Day evening.

He's certainly mistaken about the 20th of March. There was snow here at the start of March, plus on one day in April, but the second half of March was very mild.

Just noticed it's started raining

Looks quite grey and threatening now, big change from earlier. Still not very warm though.

When people discuss good summers and good summer months, there is one recent month that I find always gets missed out: July 1999. This was to me one of the few memorable months of the late 90s, and I recall it for days of hot, sunny, dry weather culminating in a thundery spell right at the end. in many ways it seemed similar to August 1995 with its abundant sunshine and lack of rain. Comparing it in this area with some other frequently mentioned summer months of recent times, it certainly holds its own: Month Temp Rain Sun Aug 1995 18.7 7.8 273.5 July 1995 18.35 33.8 231.3 Aug 1990 18.05 34.9 183.1 July 1999 17.1 14.0 242.9 July 1994 17.1 46.3 232.5 Aug 2003 17.05 27.4 164.9 Notice that it was actually a touch warmer than August 2003 as well as being drier and much sunnier- further evidence of how overrated that latter month was round here. For dryness it is surpassed only by the unforgettable August 1995. (The figres are for Shawbury, taken from the Met Office data page. I have averaged the mean max/min to get the temperatures http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/sta...awburydata.txt) Why is July 1999 so rarely mentioned? A few theories I have are: 1) June that year was fairly poor and August terrible. People remember that summer for the eclipse and those who like me went to see decks of cloud in the southwest carry that as their memory of this summer. 2) It came in the middle of 5 years of shoddy weather- mild wet winters and mediocre summers, with lots of excessive rain- people carry memories of floods and forget the one good month, as people forget the odd mild 60s or 80s winter month. 3) It was less exceptional compared to normal in the southeast than elsewhere, so the media didn't sensationalise it like they did August 2003. This despite the fact that in many places it was reportedly the best July overall since 1911. 4) It didn't record any truly extraordinary temperatures, but was consistently well above average instead. Whilst 2003 with its couple of record-breaking days followed by lots of cloudy boring ones made the front pages. Similar things have been said about Feb 86 being less well remembered than Jan 87 because it lacked record low temperatures. Anyone else have fond memories of this month?

Yet another nondescript day, partly cloudy and rather cool. Roads were damp this morning; there were some showers overnight.

Haven't seen a drop of rain in Shrewsbury today, in fact it's often been sunny. Looking at the radar we've been very lucky- there's reds and yellows all around. Fingers crossed it'll either stay dry or give us an overdue thunderstorm.

Heavy again here too, looking at the radar there's still bits over Wales and Ireland which might yet make it here. What horrible weather for August.

Another grim October morning in Shrewsbury Moderate rain picked up again, 8/8 nimbostratus, 16C, light to moderate SW wind.

Sunny, but to the E especially are absolutely dozens of contrails. There's some natural cirrus around too, but you have to look closely to distinguish them.

Brightened up a bit since noon, but there's still a lot of nasty grey stuff around. I don't think we're out of the woods yet.

Absolutely vile morning, now mod rain (was heavy around 5-7am). Looking at the radar it ain't finished yet. Gloomy too. Yesterday the frontal cloud crept in during the evening, first drops around 11pm. Yuk

Just been out in the rain for 2 minutes- it's still coming down and I thought it had suddenly gone cooler. I wasn't just imagining it- went down from 20C to 16C in an hour just up the road at Shawbury METAR EGOS 191250Z 34011KT 9999 SCT035 SCT050 20/12 Q1017 BLU NOSIG METAR EGOS 191350Z 32014KT 8000 -SHRA FEW018 BKN026 16/11 Q1017 BLU TEMPO 5000 SHRA SCT024 WHT I wonder what caused this? We didn't get such a drop from the front yesterday.

Just started tipping down here too Michael. It was fine first thing this morning, yesterday's front attempted to produce rain around 8-10 pm but we got only a few spots, no thunder either. Looking at the MO radar this lookks like Cheshire Gap showers, especially since the wind's turned to NW. And for the second day running we've had to put the lights on in the office, at mid-afternoon in August :lol: