Thundery wintry showers

I guess it depends on how strictly one is defining "settled" - I don't think we've ever had an August with high pressure all the way through, but we've certainly had some that were generally high pressure dominated with just brief interruptions, including for example 1947, 1955, 1959, 1976, 1995 and 2003. 1947 was perhaps the closest to being completely high pressure dominated, with shallow lows about on the first few days and then that was it. Some parts of western Scotland, somewhat unusually, had no rain at all in August 1947. Heathrow Airport had no measurable rain in August 1995. The Met Office's UK August sunshine stats are particularly interesting. Over the UK as a whole, only three Augusts - 1947, 1976 and 1995 - exceeded 200 hours of sunshine, but all three had over 240 hours. The next sunniest was 2003 with just short of 200 hours. I remember August 2003 being a NE-SW split month sunshine wise - in the north and east of Scotland in particular it was very sunny, but parts of Wales and the south-west only had average amounts of sunshine, hence the national average being lower.

I know it's been a while since this thread was last posted in but I wanted to say thanks to Interitus for the links. I hadn't found an adequate replacement for Weathercast until I saw these, but the combination of these two sites covers what I used Weathercast for. I am particularly interested in following the daily stats for RAF Waddington, but it's also useful for example to be able to check out how European sites are doing during heatwaves in near real-time. I think on ogimet some of the daily stats are out by a day or two, so the systematic difference needs to be accounted for - usually the daily stats will make it clear (e.g. they give the 24 hour D-1 sunshine totals to 6am on day D).

I note that RAF Waddington's sunniest day so far this month had just 6.5 hours. That's probably why it didn't seem all that dull to me over the first 9 days - most days had some sunshine but not a lot, but it means that no day has exceeded average amounts of sunshine yet (Waddington's July average is around 200 hours, or 6.5 hours per day). The last few days have certainly seemed dull, yesterday was a pretty dull one as well, taking us up to 49.8 hours. Remarkably, Jersey Airport of all places has been duller than here - just 41.5 hours so far. That must surely be approaching a record for the first 13 days of July, as on average Jersey, if it's counted in the UK statistics, is the sunniest part of the UK.

I quite enjoyed the first nine days of July in Lincoln, it wasn't particularly sunny but it was quite warm, it had some sunny spells and three days with thunder, including a very potent thunderstorm on the 3rd. But over the last few days it's mainly just been dull, and nearby Waddington (one of the sites on that Reading "month so far" page) has had just 45.4 hours of sunshine in the first 12 days of July. That's pretty poor - if it continued at this rate July would record just 117 hours. And yet it's still ahead of most sites in the south of England. I expect sunshine totals to pick up somewhat over the coming week though. It may well be a fairly cloudy high to start off with, but I expect that by Friday a large majority of the UK will be predominantly sunny.

The synoptic setup on 18 July 1955 had a ridge of high pressure over the north, a thundery-looking low to the south:

Surprisingly no thunder, but some amazing cloud formations approached from the south over Lincoln over the past hour.

Looking at the last two hours of Netweather radar it looks like on current trajectories they might reach here at around 8pm. However, individual cells are coming and going. Interestingly the latest GFS run has upped the thunderstorm potential for here on Sunday 1800Z. If that came off, it would mean getting thunderstorms here coinciding with the start of three England games in a row!

Some hefty showers going up to the south of Lincoln at the moment. They're moving so slowly, the question is, will they reach here before they dissipate due to declining solar heating and, if they do, will they be electrified? Not much thundery activity currently showing. I can see those TCu/Cb cells to the south.

It was dry with sunny spells early and late in Lincoln today, cloudier in the afternoon due to stratocumulus infill. I hear that there were some funnel clouds nearby but I didn't see them (though I can't get too greedy - I saw one back on 24 May). It was warm enough - the University's weather station got to 23C. Strangely, after a completely dry day, a shower has just come over now, after dark. I remember the same thing happening a couple of times in April. It all seems very odd that southern areas are having such a poor summer relative to the rest of the UK, despite the synoptics not always matching up with this (e.g. in a slack westerly, southern areas often get the driest, warmest and sunniest weather).

It mainly passed to the north and west of here but that cloud formation was pretty impressive! It feels surreal (and amazing) to have moved to what seems to be the present-day thunderstorm capital of Britain, it means I need to make the most of my time here. Here's some photos:

My part of Lincoln missed the showers altogether until now, but yes, thunder and lightning have commenced in the past 15 minutes here.

For some reason it linked to June's data, I meant this link for July: http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/CURR.html I agree that the table isn't the easiest to follow.

Yes it was a pretty dismal day in Newcastle and that general area of the UK today. In Lincoln it was mainly cloudy and showery, but I did see more sunshine in between the showers after mid-afternoon. I found the second half of June depressing but have been quite enjoying July so far and am looking forward to tomorrow's thundery potential. There's even a chance of a storm in my former location of Exeter tomorrow, though the chance is greater in the east of England. However the "month so far" stats at http://www.met.reading.ac.uk/~brugge/PREV.html do suggest that central southern and south-eastern England have largely had a continuation of the grim weather of late June so far this July, so I don't think some of the moaning in here is necessarily misplaced either.

I think it was 1993 when the highest annual max was 29.7C sometime in early July. 2007 almost managed it but I think somewhere just nudged over 30C in early August 2007.

Atmospheric circulation for the coming week has a cold low pressure system over the pole which should help to slow down melt in the central part of the Arctic for the next 7 to 10 days: However, a pulse of unusually hot air from eastern Siberia could result in further melt events over the east Russia/Alaska side in particular, especially at around 4-6 days' time.

At RAF Waddington June was warm and quite dry with average sunshine - it seems that the sunny first half and dull second half counterbalanced each other, but the dull second half did get depressing at times. The outlook for the next several days is for sunshine and scattered thundery showers and becoming moderately warm with max temperatures in the low 20s after a fairly cool breezy day today, so I won't be complaining too much.

I went out for a roast dinner, banking on the showers holding off until after I had my dinner... and they did, but then I got drenched on the walk home! Some things don't change. Although nothing like yesterday's storms, I have heard five rumbles from a cell to my east, so it goes down as my second consecutive day of thunder heard.

Averaged nationally I think 1976 managed it quite comfortably. Also, if the maximum (rather than mean) temperature is taken as the measure of warmth, I think 1975 and 1989 qualify, and possibly 1996, which was the subject of a recent thread in the historical weather section. But yes, again it's pretty rare.

Yes, there's a few sferics appearing to the south and west of here. I have a suspicion that we could be in quite a prime location for thundery activity over the coming week. Meanwhile, here's my lightning captures from yesterday:

Yes, it's rare, I think 2012 was the summer when it was most widely achieved in my lifetime, particularly in the south-west of Britain, but even then, there were a couple of fine spells sandwiching a few days of sunshine and thundery showers in late July and early August. It has been achieved locally in some other summers - 2002 and 2004 spring to mind - but not widely, as far as I remember. Going further back, I think 1985 and 1987 managed it quite widely. Early July looks set to be wet for some, but not necessarily particularly dull. What happens after that is uncertain but there are hints that high pressure could build at times.

June 2016 was an odd month, it started off settled and warm but very dull in some eastern areas, and then became very wet and, for most, cloudy, which resulted in some areas having an exceptionally dull month. Remarkably, at my local station at RAF Waddington, it was about as dull as the record-breaking dull June of 2012. I recall that in parts of north-western Britain sunshine was close to average due to a sunny start to the month though. December 2006 was locally sunnier than June 2007 near the east coast of Scotland, so while it's very unusual, it's not unknown.

Yes, I checked the GFS 12Z precipitation charts and they bear out what you say. The Midlands, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and NE England are looking most likely to see thundery activity at this stage.

A cell just to the east of Lincoln has unexpectedly become "electrified": have seen two flashes of lightning from it so far.

This has been a hefty thunderstorm indeed - I only turned on the England match 13 minutes in because three of the lightning strikes were so close that I felt I had to turn the electricity off! It's still rumbling away now, but more distant.

I sense that I'm very much in a minority here, but I see a lot of interest in this coming week, plenty of convection and potential to get quite a few thunder-days out of it. With a bit of luck Monday's dull wet windy weather might pass through overnight Monday/Tuesday.