Scorcher

I would be in favour of staying on BST but it would actually make the mornings worse with later sunrises. It doesn't actually add any daylight at all. There just isn't anything you can do to solve the very short days which are totally down to latitude. Personally though I would deal with very late sunrises if it meant having some extra daylight in the evenings.

New York's latest sunrise time in the entire winter is 7.20am. That's over an hour earlier than our latest time- it makes a massive difference and would mean people starting work at a standard time always travel to work in daylight. They are at 40 degrees north.

Days are FAR too short here in the winter months. Hardly any usable light at all if you work full time. At least in places like New York most people are travelling to work in some kind of daylight- the sunrise is considerably earlier in January there than it is in the UK. It's really very depressing for many people to travel to and from work for weeks/months on end in total darkness

I was meaning more in comparison to places further south, where the reduction in day length is more gradual compared to the UK.

I have no problem with the day length at the moment- it's fine now but there is a quicker deterioration at these high latitudes after the equinox. The sun is quite low quite early here compared to many parts of the world though.

I don't consider that to be lucky- I'd prefer that lowering of the sun to happen later as it does in the US- it would be nice for us to still have the 5 or 6 UV levels until the end of September. As someone who loves summer I always feel a bit short-changed in this country with the very early switch to autumn.

Eh? Since when have most people not welcomed hot weather in the first half of September? There is no chance of really cold weather this early in the season anyway. It's worth remembering that September is warmer than June for the most part.

Long may it continue. We spend enough of the year in jumpers and coats. Truly wonderful day today.

Could be up there for warm first halves. Certainly the first 10 days are looking very warm indeed.

Summer is coming more like...no chilly nights next week that's for sure!

I'd be surprised if that 21.7 C record is broken but you never know, It's not too unusual to have minima between 15 and 18C in September warm spells.

For some areas we could see some of the highest temps in September for many years on Tuesday and Wednesday. Possibly not in the south, but outside the SE temperatures of 27C+ are not common in September. I've often wondered what kind of temperatures we could have had in 2011 if the hot spell had come a couple of weeks earlier. Looks like we will have similar uppers to the September/October 2011 spell but perhaps not as much unbroken sunshine.

GFS looks a bit suspect after midweek- I reckon it will be on the unsettled side of the mean after Wednesday. That low that drops down towards the Bay of Biscay magically moves north again late on Wednesday- seems slightly odd.

It's telling that a continental flow almost always produces hazy skies in this country- there is almost always a lot of pollution and dust in the air in such a flow, with the air passing over regions such as the Ruhr in Germany and polluted areas of Poland for example. I always notice how much cleaner the air feels as soon as I land back in the UK from the continent.

If I was going to move it definitely wouldn't be to Central Europe. Ok there are more hot days in summer but I find the air quality noticeably poorer than in the UK. I also don't like too many completely windless days and fog seems to be more common there in winter as a result. The benefits over the UK are just not numerous enough in central Europe for me to consider moving there. Each to their own but I feel uncomfortable in the middle of a continent for too long. Southern Europe would be my choice I reckon as I hate the cold in winter.

I would certainly have a second home in another country, or if finances permitted it ideally I'd like to spend October to March in a warm country every year, possibly in the Southern Hemisphere. I despise winter that much that I would happily avoid it every year and then come back for the spring and summer in the UK. It just feels like such a long and hopeless slog at times between November and March.

Yes they finally seem to be catching on now- you'd think they'd be ahead of the game though rather than behind. It seems to happen so often!

This has got to be the cloudiest high pressure I've ever seen. Quite bizarre really as it's not the typical type of North Sea cloud by any means. Looking at the satellite though it seems as if we may get some good breaks in the cloud here this afternoon.

You obviously don't remember August 2008 then- it was considerably duller in our area in terms of sunshine amounts.

It just surprises me that us amateurs can clearly a see a change is coming but it takes them so long to cotton on. I've seen it many times down the years, including before a friend's wedding a few years back- BBC and Meto were convinced it was going to be cool and cloudy while I was assuring my friend it would be warm and sunny. Lo and behold, the forecast dramatically shifted 2 days beforehand. Great to see the ECM still well and truly on board with the warm up this morning.

Am I missing something here? Yet another very warm run from the GFS with a perfect flow off the continent early next week for warm temps and sunshine. Yet the Met Office and BBC are not having it at all. UKMO doesn't look as good but it has been the most unsettled of all the main models over the past couple of days. It almost feels to me as if their forecasting systems have got stuck on 'cool and cloudy' due to the monotonously cloudy weather we've been having recently.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

Very interesting- has it gone up slightly after yesterday's sunshine?

We've still reached 30C here and the hot spell in July was certainly notable for northern and western areas. It will be a memorable summer for Northern Ireland and parts of Scotland I imagine. The CET doesn't take it to account how memorable a summer is- it's purely a measure of how warm it's been. This is going to be a warm summer although admittedly not a sunny one for most of us. Certainly a lot warmer than many were predicting after the cold May.

It's going to be around average in the end by the looks of it- and despite all the complaints over the last few weeks, statistically it's going to end up a notably warm summer.