Summer 2009 - memories

[Harry233]

Another summer topic, and another one that seemed very different area to area. It gets quite a bad rep summer 2009 but I have quite a lot of good memories from it.

 June started  very warm and sunny coming off the back of a very warm end to May. It didn’t last long though and by the 5th the weather had drastically changed to a cold and wet pattern. From about the 11th the weather did improve again but it remained quite unsettled until the 22nd however unlike other unsettled Junes there wasn’t much rainfall. The final week of June brought some very warm, dry and sunny weather again and this lasted well until the first week in July, from the 22nd-5th the temperature exceeded 22.C every day. The highest temperature was on the 30th with a maximum of 27.3.C bringing the warmest June day since 2003. The month ended up being slightly warmer, drier and sunnier.

July began exactly the same as June started and finished with a peak of the heat arriving on the 2nd with a maximum of 29.4.C this made it the highest temperature of 2009, also the hottest July day since 2006 and there wasn’t a higher temperature until July 2013. It remained warm and sunny until the 5th and then the weather turned more unsettled and rainy. However I still have very good memories of July 2009 despite the rainfall and thunderstorms. The difference being unlike other wet summer months where the rain has been light and the weather has generally been dull and cool. July 2009 was still pretty sunny and wasn’t cool on many days I recorded a very respectable maxima of 20.5.C and sunshine was slightly above average. I remember many days starting very sunny  and dry, followed by a late afternoon thunderstorm or downpour that lasted an hour before the weather cleared up leaving a warm and sunny evening. There was a brief spell from the 15th-20th where it was cool, dull and wet. July 2009 was actually the third sunniest July of the 2000’s for me and the Julys of 2002, 2007 and 2008 were significantly wetter.

August followed by being quite a disappointing month but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as 2008. The month started quite cool and unsettled before turning more settled and sunny with some warm days. The second half turned more unsettled but still quite warm before it turned cool again. The final days saw a marked improvement and the September that followed was quite a pleasant month.

Looking at met office stats I believe summer 2009 was a absolute abysmal summer in the west, particularly for Wales, north west England and south west Scotland but across the south east it looks to be slightly drier and sunnier than average and across northern Scotland while still being wet it looks to be one of the sunniest summers there on record.

 

Whats your memories on that season? 

[cheeky_monkey]

Fantastic summer for me..spent 3 weeks in June on hols in Cyprus..in fact it was the last Holiday i have been on.

[damianslaw]

The better summer of the 07-12 period, featured some warmth, more so than 2010 the other half decent summer of said period, but was wetter.

July brought alot of heavy thundery rain at times. June was pleasant. August very average. 

 

Edited March 22 by damianslaw

[Billy Hicks]

After the horror shows of 2007 and 8 this one started really well and there did seem to be a brief feeling in late June that we were finally going to get another scorcher, that weather at the end of the month was fantastic in London. Unfortunately that mostly was as good as it got as much of July was wet as already stated, and my early August photos mostly show grey cloud before brightening up at the very end of the month in time for the Notting Hill Carnival. Luckily we had a really nice September which arrived just in time for me to turn 21, starting back at uni that month on the right track!

Not the long hot summer it could have been, but it’s a beautiful blur of youthful house parties, nights out and ‘I Gotta Feeling’ by the Black Eyed Peas playing at every opportunity, so I’ll always be fond of this one.

[Don]

Summer 2009 was in my view, very reasonable and far better than 2008, particularly August!

[Harry233]

 damianslaw 2010 was a pretty reasonable summer for me too. A very pleasant and warm June and believe it or not I had quite a dry and sunny August it was just cool. July was disappointing that year though. 

[Harry233]

 Don summer 2008 had probably the worst August for me until 2020. Horrible month, don’t recall much else from that summer though, only things I can really remember is a warm spell in the last week in July and June being noticeably windy.

[Sunshineandshowers84]

I remember 2009 April was a good month and a good bit of May. Last few weeks of June into July brought warm and sunny weather and by mid July it was the end of summer with a cloudy day (temps of 29/30c) with Thundery Rain pushing through (which came to nothing) clearing with fresher weather. It did bring some welcomed rain but rest of July, August and into September was wet.. This took us into the big freeze of the 2009/10 winter.

[Harry233]

 Sunshineandshowers84 spring 2009 was a good season. Enjoyed it very much sunnier than average in all months and it was mild without any significant heat until the end of May.

[B87]

June 2009 was warm and sunny. July started off warm and sunny, but quickly collapsed into a cool and convective month. Lots of days with a few hours of sun, barely any sunny days. It ended up cool, exceptionally cloudy and wet. August got things back on track, with average temps and below average rainfall, but it was still duller than average. 

Even with all that, it was probably the best summer of the 2007-2012 period, which shows how bad the rest of them were.

Temperatures from Heathrow that summer. 

Edited March 28 by B87

[Summer8906]

Famous as the much-pilloried "barbecue summer".

Not as bad as all that, but what made it seem worse than it was, was the central month of July being very cool and wet.

June was predominantly warm and sunny as already noted, particularly the last week but also earlier in the month at times. I remember the post-solstice period being meteorologically interesting in the sense that it started sunny but not that hot with low humidity (NE-lies), then one night (the day Michael Jackson died which would make it Thurs 25th) a thundery trough unusually advanced NW-wards into this not-so-hot air producing some late-evening storms after dark.

Behind this thundery trough, it turned very hot and humid with higher cloud levels but also higher temps - a rare case of a thundery trough turning it warmer and more humid!

July started hot and humid but quickly turned cool and cloudy over the first weekend. The week of 6th-10th was then cloudy and cool but not that wet. I left the country on the 10th and returned on the 27th but it was apparently very wet indeed during this period, 2007-like in its wetness but thankfully not as prolonged. I was in the Alps and even there, Sat 18th was very, very wet and incredibly cool with settling snow down to 2000m and temps of 10C in Garmisch at around sunset.

(Strangely 1987 had the same calendar and on Sat 18th July in 1987 I was also in Germany - and it was also very unsettled both in the UK and Germany and 18 July 1987 at my location in Germany was very cool and very wet).

I returned on the 27th and the final week was cool and very zonal westerlies with a couple of active frontal systems but reasonably sunny weather in between.

August was then largely dry apart from the first few days. The best of the weather was from around (EDIT, have checked @B87's stats which has jogged a few memories) the 7th-22nd, when it was often sunny with moderate temps in the low 20s interspersed with cool and cloudy days; after that it turned cloudier and cooler (but still fairly dry) as westerlies set in, IIRC, but the Bank Holiday Monday on the 31st was warm and sunny.

I distinctly remember August being cooler than the synoptics might suggest due to cool SSTs. I do remember a constant nagging westerly breeze and maxima around 19C or so being the typical weather of late month and some days earlier in the month, but, as I said, it was largely dry.

September 2009 was, alongside 2014, one of only two really settled Septembers in the past 15 years. September does seem to be trending more unsettled of late.

What made 2009 seem relatively poor at the time was the July, I think, plus the frequent cool weather later in August. But it was probably the best summer of the 07-12 period, 2010 also not being too bad.

But I'd say 2009 was better than 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2023 and these days, in the context of 15 years of frequent poor summers, I'd re-rate it as average alongside 2010.

The extended summer and far-extended summer (Mar-Oct) 2009 could be considered good though. It was a year of predominantly fine weather, with two exceptions, November and, unfortunately, July. It's interesting to note that throughout the period Oct 2008-Mar 2012, the weather was actually often mercifully free of the Atlantic in overdrive - unfortunately the really bad weather had a tendency to occur during summer!

 

Edited March 28 by Summer8906

[Harry233]

 Summer8906 2010 was a decent summer for me. A really good June and a decent August albeit rather cool. The July that year was pretty disappointing though.

[B87]

 Harry233 Here's 2010 summer at Heathrow. It was good for the first half, dire for the 2nd half. Mid July and August must have been the dullest 6 week summer period on record, comparable with 2021.

August was horrific.

 

[Hessle Owl]

I personally love an Summer like 2009 just standard average summer fayre not terrible not poor by anymeans plenty of usable weather. But sunny and low twenties is perfect for me anyway. I often wonder how people on this forum would cope if we had bang average summer period like what we had between 2000/02 typical standard british summer i dread another 2022 style heatwave. 

[LetItSnow!]

The stats

June 2009

July 2009

August 2009

Trevor Harley writes about August 2009's unusual contrast in rainfall between the south-east and the north-west; "Parts of Norfolk saw only 5 mm of rain, the lowest since 1947, while several spots in the NW had record amounts of rainfall for August: Eskdalemuir had 394 mm (over 15 inches!) of rain, four times the average amount. The England and Wales rainfall total was 65 mm (90% of average), while Scotland saw 193% and Northern Ireland 205%.". It appears for the extreme east such as Norfolk and Suffolk August 2009 was quite a good one with temperatures over 1C above average, very dry and sunny too.

My own personal memories are very limited being that I was only 8 years old. I remember early July having thunderstorms. I remember the 7th being a convective day of sunshine and heavy showers but that is the only memory I can for sure date to summer 2009.

[Summer8906]

 Hessle Owl Given that summers 2000-02 and 2009 were better than many recent summers, I suspect people would cope quite fine with a rerun of any of those 4 !

[Summer8906]

 Harry233 Interesting as here, 2010 followed a clear deteriorating trend with June clearly the best and  July much better than August.

June was very, very good: hot and sunny.

July was mostly dry but often cloudy and with some cool and dull days in the first half before it became generally warmer. Perhaps like a cooler version of July 2016.

August started dry and cloudy but became cool and wet before mid-month and remained that way until almost the end.

July 2010 was not unlike August 2009 synoptically, though, IIRC - so westerly with high pressure to the south, which would explain it being worse in Scotland.

Edited April 1 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! Interesting that all 3 months are warmer than I remembered - presumably down to warm nights in July and August (though June was warm by day).

June is also less sunny than I remember in this area: I do recall it being a distinctly sunny month with only short cloudy periods.

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 The maxima for large swathes of the south-west in July 2009 were below average even by 1961-1990 averages though interestingly the far north was very warm. Indeed, for the northern Scotland overall it appears July 2009 was very warm.

Edited April 1 by LetItSnow!
Forgot to say in the south-west.

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906

8 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

July was mostly dry but often cloudy and with some cool and dull days in the first half before it became generally warmer. Perhaps like a cooler version of July 2016.

July 2010 was an odd one. At the time there was extreme heat to our east (Russia had an exceptionally hot summer IIRC) and we were on the periphery of it in July. Looking at the temperature, sunshie and rainfall maps, it was actually an exceptinally hot month in the extreme east. In Scotland the maxima were below the 1961-1990 average so it truly was a grim summer month up there. Ironically, the reverse pattern occured in August 2010 where, though not warm, the north-west was slightly sunnier and drier than average but C England/East was cool (by day) and very wet. 

 

Might as well give the anomalies for each month like I did for 2009.

June 2010

July 2010

August 2010

Summer 2010

Truly a very mixed bag. 

 

 

[danm]

 LetItSnow! by the way, your anomaly period is 1961-1990, rather than 1991-2020

Edited April 1 by danm

[LetItSnow!]

 danm I know. I chose that on purpose as I feel it avoids masking over the elephant in the room which by using the 1991-2020 average often does. Purely personal opinion but it's no good using a 1991-2020 map to convey a cold anomaly when historically it's not a cold anomaly. The summers of 2009 and 2010 were by no means cool summers, relatively speaking to average, though an average or even slightly warmer than average summer may feel positively Artic compared to other places.

[damianslaw]

Summers 09 and 10 were quite ok overall here, and far better than the 2 that preceded and followed them, but marked against the 03-06 summers and 13-14, summers were below par. 2009 and 2010 seems an age ago now, the weather was far more interesting than the incessant gloomy mild muck we see these days by and large. 

[Harry233]

 Summer8906 my records from both summers. 2010 had slightly warmer maxima than 2009 but lower minima, 2010 was slightly wetter and 2009 was slightly sunnier. Both ended up very similar overall. 

June 2010 was a really good month being warmer, drier and sunnier the average the maxima was especially high.

July 2010 was a terrible summer month but at least it wasn’t exceptionally dull 2002, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2015, 2020 were a lot duller

August 2010 was generally quite pleasant aside from a few unsettled days but there was a number of very cool nights with minima regularly dipping well into single figures.

 

 

 

Edited April 1 by Harry233

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! Interesting Kent was also warm by day. Not that wet either by the looks of things so looks like Kent could be considered a good summer in 2009.

July 2009 was significantly better on the not-too-distant continent, I was mostly in Germany or Switzerland for the 2 weeks I was gone. There it was frequently sunny and warm (as well as humid) though with one or two thundery breakdowns and a spell of more general cool, wet weather around the weekend of the 18th. Behind that cool wet spell it became less humid.

 

Edited April 2 by Summer8906