Thundery wintry showers

Quite a bit of lightning around Glasgow in the past hour. There were a couple of heavy showers here in Lincoln earlier but no thunder - the thundery activity over England is mostly to the north and east, apart from a cell over the south-west.

There is regional variation around the UK, I can certainly say I find Lincoln's climate more interesting than Exeter's or Tyneside's for example. Leeds and Norwich were two other places that I quite enjoyed climate wise when I was there. However, I've seen the British climate referred to overall as a "jack of all trades, master of none" climate - we are capable of a greater variety of weather than almost anywhere else in the world, but the prevailing synoptic patterns and our position at the downwind end of the Atlantic mean that bland nothingness happens for the majority of the time. Certainly having been on holiday to many parts of France and viewed some of the Munich webcams, I get a strong sense that I'd find the climates of much of central and eastern France and southern Germany more interesting and enjoyable than anywhere in the UK. On the other hand, I can also think of plenty of climates around the world that I'd find less interesting than ours. I think among those of us who like storms, snow and temperature variety, in Britain we rather suffer by comparison with our continental neighbours, but by global standards our climate isn't that boring.

The high pressure over Greenland combined with high 500mb heights and a warm airmass has indeed resulted in a notable melt spike, though not a record breaking one. The net mass balance losses were higher in the big melt episodes in 2012 and 2019, and in terms of melt area, the big melt episodes in 2002 and 2005 also produced larger losses. 15 July 1995 also had a comparable melt area. However, by most standards the ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet has been very substantial over the past few days. https://nsidc.org/greenland-today/greenland-surface-melt-extent-interactive-chart/ http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/ Conditions look like returning much closer to normal over Greenland in the coming week. However, as Greenland cools down, we look set to see another plume of warm air head in from Siberia and penetrate close to the North Pole, which could result in some northward retreat of the sea ice to the north of Eurasia.

During the recent hot sunny spell, the outdoor temperatures were fine for me, rather on the hot side of comfortable at times, but not excessively so. It was the indoor temperatures that got a bit much towards the end of the spell. I had contemplated getting an air con system myself but in the end I concluded that it wasn't worth it when my living room gets uncomfortably hot for maybe around 10 days per year, and in future years I'll probably have the option of working from an air conditioned office on at least some of those days. Perhaps as climate change progresses, an air con system will become more of an attractive investment.

Regarding climate change, the UK has actually got sunnier as well as wetter over the past 50 years. The increase in sunshine has been most marked in eastern and southern England, less so in the north-west (though this year is bucking that trend somewhat). However, the increase in sunshine has been concentrated in winter and spring, and summers haven't been getting any sunnier. https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.7285 The decline of the "global dimming" phenomenon associated with certain types of pollutant blocking out the sun is probably a contributory factor here, especially in winter.

I remember Norwich had a big one just two days ago, though it was quite a narrow band extending from WSW-ENE through Norwich.

He might be exaggerating a bit, I moved to Lincoln on 9 April and I've heard thunder on 13 days so far, 7 of which have occurred in July. But your overall point still stands, I seem to have really struck lucky moving here this year.

Philip Eden in his 1995 book Weatherwise noted that Llandudno had a record high of 18.3C in January 1971 and then on the same day of June 1971 it only reached 11C. I particularly liked his concluding statement, which went along the lines of, "So if you want to sunbathe in Llandudno, forget flaming June, try January instead. But you will have to choose your dates carefully." There was also an unusually warm southerly spell in December 1972 which might have produced similar quirks relative to June 1972. Summer 1977 was an oddity, it was cool everywhere, dull and wet in the SE, but sunny and dry in the NW, so many parts of north-western Britain had three dry sunny summers in a row, though 1977 would still have felt cool compared to the previous two summers. I remember seeing charts comparing the Junes of 1976 and 2018 and noting that whereas warmth was quite widespread globally in June 2018, 1976 was one of the coolest years of the 20th century globally, and in June 1976 the warm patch over western Europe sticks out somewhat. The main cause of the warmth of June 1976 was a much above-average frequency of southerly winds, which combined with high pressure from the 22nd-26th, and then high pressure sat on top of the country on the last few days with the unusually hot airmass not really moving much. Dry weather in the spring in southern Britain and neighbouring parts of continental Europe might also have intensified the heat due to dry soils tending to contribute to intense heat.

17.3C and 76.5mm. I think it may well warm up around midmonth after a rather cool start.

Yes, I thought the first half of June was pretty good (not necessarily near the south coast of England, but pretty much everywhere else). It's been an odd summer so far with its north-south split despite the lack of a pronounced southerly tracking jet stream (wet and dull in the SE, dry and sunny in the NW). July has been a strange one here in Lincoln, often dull early and late in the month with that persistently hot sunny week thrown in. Waddington is reporting below average sunshine in spite of that very sunny week. However I can't moan too much with having had 6 days with thunder this month.

I expect that there will be a further warming of the UK climate, somewhere around 0.7 to 1C, above what we have today. That's the easiest part to predict - what happens as a consequence of that is harder to determine. The following is what I envisage happening as a result of such further warming of the climate: In summer, it will become harder to get a fine anticyclonic spell without excessive (mid-high 30s Celsius, probably the occasional 40C) or prolonged (high 20s/low 30s) heat. I've been noticing this becoming an issue especially since around 2015, and it looks set to continue to intensify. For spells of dry sunny weather without such heat, May may become the preferred month for many people. Cooler changeable spells probably won't change much, except for being up to a degree warmer. More intense rainfall events are likely, but I have low confidence in overall changes in summer rainfall. Winters will be milder and probably wetter overall. Synoptics that currently bring snow events and temperatures of 0 to 1C will bring rain or sleet in 2050, but synoptics that bring snow at sub-zero temperatures will still be cold enough for snow in 2050. The mean annual frequency of lying snow will probably reduce to about half of what it is today, so for example reducing to a mean annual frequency of 3 to 5 days in eastern England from Norfolk northwards, and about 2 days for much of southern England, and less than 1 day in many low-lying parts of the south-west.

From my six and a half years of living in Exeter I remember that for whatever reasons the ATD system was less good at picking up lightning strikes over the south-west in this kind of setup. In almost every other setup it's very reliable, but I remember quite a few big storms down there which had only a scattering of strikes showing up, and yet I was observing strikes every 5-10 seconds reasonably close to or over Exeter. Good examples of this were on 19 July 2017 and 23/24 July 2019.

I'm watching Exeter's weather with interest as I was there prior to April this year and it looks like a prime setup for getting a big storm there, but so far it's looking like it would've been quite frustrating had I still been there. Unusually, I'm not looking to complain about my old location getting storms and me missing them, as I'm on 10 thunder-days so far in Lincoln, and I get the impression that Exeter is currently on just 1 or 2. I'd actually be pleased for the storm lovers in Exeter if they were to get a good one tonight.

I was in Leeds that month and it felt like spending a sunnier than average summer month in continental Europe, with the consistent sunshine and heat and occasional thunderstorms thrown in. I think it was the 3rd which had a potent thunderstorm move slowly in from the west, the cumulonimbus looming out of the haze at around 6pm and then the thunder and lightning commenced from around 9pm. Sunshine totals were particularly exceptional in north-east England and the east Midlands. Morpeth (Northumberland) and Waddington (Lincolnshire) for example both exceeded 300 hours, and even on the north-east coast, average maxima of 23C were commonplace (23.4C at coastal Whitby for example). Not sure how much sunshine Leeds had, but Bradford's weather station, which normally has 10-20% less sunshine than Leeds, had an average max of 24.8C and 265 hours of sunshine, suggesting that Leeds might have had close to 300 hours of sunshine too. The only comparably exceptional month I can find for heat and sunshine in this region of the UK was June 1940. Cheeky_monkey's post raises a good point about regional variation: in many parts of the south and west, and especially the south-west, July 2006 was not as hot as July 1983, and sunshine wise it fell a fair way short of August 1995 and also July 2013. Thus, as is often the case, there was some regional variation.

The recent synoptics have been relatively favourable for sea ice retention in the Arctic but there are some concerning charts showing up for 7-10 days' time, particularly on the ECMWF operational runs. High pressure and relatively high heights setting up over the Barents/Kara region which could well decimate that surviving tongue of sea ice east of Franz Josef Land and leave the region to the north of Eurasia completely clear of sea ice. High pressure and southerly and south-westerly winds also look set to take over across Greenland, which has so far had a modest melt season in 2021 but could see some major melt spikes in the coming fortnight. I know the following ECMWF chart is a long way out and subject to change, but it's scary seeing setups showing where long-draw northerlies could bring warmth!

The assessment of the Manchester stats illustrates some of the subjectivity that goes into best/worst. I guess this is an example of where best/worst is subjective to some extent even if you're working from the premise that warmest/driest/sunniest = best. When I read those stats, I assessed 1987 as "worst" because I gave more weight to sunshine than temperature and rainfall (1985 was coolest and wettest, but sunshine was surprisingly just a little below average). I've checked out the 1980s summer stats for Waddington near Lincoln, and get the following: (anomalies/percent relative to 1951-80 average): 1980: Tmax -0.9, rainfall 147, sunshine 83 1981: Tmax -0.1, rainfall 71, sunshine 96 1982: Tmax +0.5, rainfall 139, sunshine 89 1983: Tmax +2.0, rainfall 56, sunshine 112 1984: Tmax +1.3, rainfall 76, sunshine 118 1985: Tmax -1.2, rainfall 112, sunshine 96 1986: Tmax -0.5, rainfall 93, sunshine 105 1987: Tmax -1.2, rainfall 137, sunshine 77 1988: Tmax -0.7, rainfall 123, sunshine 93 1989: Tmax +2.1, rainfall 79, sunshine 138 Thus I'd say depending on what weights you give to maximum temperature, sunshine and rainfall, "worst" would be either 1980 or 1987. It was surprising to see that 1986 came out slightly drier and sunnier than average. 1981 was drier than average here too, albeit marginally cooler/cloudier than average.

The commentator's curse strikes again - a cell sprouted up just to my west within ten minutes of me posting this!

I posted in the summer discussion thread that I'd missed the storms in Lincoln today - here's hoping that I did a Murray Walker/commentator's curse!

I missed the storms today... I guess that even in Lincoln you can't win them all, as they say!

Despite reaching a max of 29.4C earlier today, nearby Waddington is already down at 20C (it was 26C this time yesterday), so the house should cool down more tonight.

Again, I'm coping OK with the daytime heat outside, but the 29.1C and 53% relative humidity indoors is proving to be the main problem. I think it's the combination of warm nights as well as warm days that is doing it - at Waddington it didn't get much below 18C last night. When the temperatures fall below 15C at night, as has historically been common in spells with daytime highs in the high 20s/low 30s, the house cools down. Some people have mentioned August 1995 recently, I think the first few days of August '95 also had this problem, with highs in the low 30s widely and minima not far short of 20C, but there was indeed a spell from around the 8th-22nd when temperatures were widely high 20s/low 30s by day, but falling to 12-15C overnight, which made the heat easier to handle for many of us.

Yes, the dew point at nearby RAF Waddington has been around 15C which isn't too bad, but inside my house it's probably around 19C, given a temperature of 28.9C and relative humidity of 55%. That's really pushing it.

It got up to around 29C here in Lincoln today. The heat outdoors was OK for me, rather on the warm side of comfortable but not bad, and it was nice to get plenty of sunshine. Indoor temperatures of 27 to 29C are proving rather trickier though! I don't mind the daytime heat but I could do with lower humidity and cooler temperatures overnight to help cool the house down a bit.

1948 also had a very good spring - before 2020 it was the sunniest spring on record for the UK as a whole, now of course pushed into second place. But yes, despite that late July heatwave the summer was wet and also ranked as the 8th dullest.

I forgot the Augusts of 1983 and 1991 - those two were also dry, fairly sunny and high pressure dominated for the most part. A few other Augusts spring to mind as not necessarily being consistently settled, but being what many people would consider good. August 1975 was a hot, sunny month for most with most of the rain coming from thunderstorms, and averaged nationally it was a bit drier than average. The Augusts of 1989 and 1990 were NW-SE split months, but for the majority of both months the south and east of England were predominantly sunny and dry. August 1989 was more exceptional sunshine wise towards the SE, August 1990 more notable for heat, with a record-breaking heatwave at the beginning.