Just for fun: Guess the year

[B87]

 Weather Enthusiast91 Yes, it couldn't be any other with than July, November and December!

[LetItSnow!]

Next one.

The winter was mild with near-normal rainfall. January was very dry with both notably mild and cold spells but February was generally mild and very wet but sunny.

The spring was fairly mild and dry. March was warm and dry with an early warm spell. April was cool and wet with a notable snow storm. May was a very average month but it featured some exceptional thunderstorms which were tornadic.

The summer started well but turned poor. June was hot, sunny and rather dry with an extreme hot spell but July and August were very wet and quite cool though not overly dull.

The rest of the year was quite cold with varying rainfall. September was cool, wet and dull, October was very dry but quite chilly, November was quite cold but very wet again and December was very cold and snowy.

[cheeky_monkey]

 Weather Enthusiast91 nope it was not 1979

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! Hmmm.. had to think about it and considered a number of other years before coming to a decision.

1950? I know of the April snowy spell, the hot June and the cold December, and can't see anything which would contradict.

 

Edited May 13 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 1950 is correct. A bit of a 2023 style summer somewhat.

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! Yes, I did think 1957 briefly but that, AFAIK, had a mild December.

Will think of one myself but will just go back up the thread to check what's been done already.

[Summer8906]

OK here's one which I don't think has been done.

January was mostly mild and wet, and Atlantic dominated. There was some particularly mild weather in the first week. A short coolish dry spell intervened around the 10th and the weekend of the 24th was also coolish and dull. Pressure was higher towards the end of the month.

February was changeable, westerly, but not overly wet and often on the sunny side. It was also rather mild. March was mixed with some good warm sunny spells mixed with more changeable periods and was mild, and April was on the warm side as well as being dull and changeable but did feature a short cold spell with snow in some areas and warm, sunny weather at the end.  May was warm but changeable with some notable thundery events.

June was somewhat dry but also fairly cloudy and featured notable thundery activity on the night of the 1st. Really warm weather was limited to a few days in the second half of the month though there were a number of pleasant, dry and bright days at other times. The sole warm spell was followed by a thundery breakdown followed by a rare immediate change to a bright and fresh NW-ly, before dull and unsettled SW-lies arrived the following week. July started thundery and then was predominantly dry, warm and sunny, hot at times (especially at the end), with brief cool spells. August saw a gradual breakdown in the opening days to very wet weather via a sequence of frontal systems though it was initially hot. The month continued mostly changeable or unsettled with only brief breaks, though turned warm and sunny at the end.

September started sunny and warm to hot but became dull and very wet in the second half. October had an unsettled start and end but lengthy fine spell mid-month. November was quite similar to October in some ways, while December was mild, wet and Atlantic-dominated but did feature brief cold spells, one producing lying snow in South Hampshire. It was stormy at times but could have been a good deal worse in that respect if certain low tracks were slightly different.

 

Edited May 13 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

 cheeky_monkey Not something from WWII is it? I know 1940, 1941 and 1942 all had cold winters. Doesn't sound like 1940 so I'll say 1941.

I say that as I can't think of another cold Jan/Feb combination since the war with the rest of the year matching your description.

 

Edited May 13 by Summer8906

[cheeky_monkey]

 Summer8906 correct was 1941

[Summer8906]

 cheeky_monkey Lucky guess... somewhere in the back of my mind I thought I'd remembered 1941 as a front-loaded summer also.

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 I am going to vote 1999 fairly confidently. My reasons being the westerly but unremarkable winter, the thundery May and the storms around the 1st of June and the hot end to July. 

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! Correct!

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 I'm on a roll! The upsides of having a atypical brain that holds onto the most irrelevant things. Don't think I've guessed wrong...yet.

Pressing the random number generator for my next year. All welcome to guess as always.

The winter was mild and wet despite a drier January. There little in the way of snow, restricted to the first-half of January when the south-east had some falls. The mild theme continued into March where in Scotland it was extremely wet but drier across England and Wales.

The rest of the spring was colder though but not exceptionally so. April was quite dry but May was exceptionally wet and exceptionally thundery.

The summer was unremarkable but quite dry and had a sunny June with some severe thunderstorms in the north and west (including Wales) late in the month. July and August were statistically unremarkable but August had some severe storms from the 8th to the 10th, first in the north then more widespread in the south. These storms were so severe that they cut off villages, collapsed bridges and caused lightning deaths.

The autumn was generally very wet despite a drier November but had near-normal temperatures. September was very wet and October was extremely wet. November was rather cold. December had a severe snowstorm in the first-half of the month that affected a widespread area from the south coast through the south-west and into south Wales but the month was overall statistically unremarkable.

The year overall was slightly warmer than average and very wet.

This was quite hard to do because it really is not a classic year. You could definitely put this in the "meh" folder along with the likes of 2002. Perhaps that's a clue.

Edited May 13 by LetItSnow!

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! 1967?

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 Correct. A year that really doesn't sum up its decade! Indeed add a degree and it wouldn't look out of place today. 

Though, and while I'll keep it short since it is technically a bit off topic, take away 1963 and the winter months of the 1960s don't average that remarkably cold. Even anually if you take away 1962 and 1963 the years weren't unusually cold. It's a decade that's been taken over in status by one year. Though still better than nowadays...

Anyways, perhaps I'll let someone else go before I do the next one!

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! True. The exceptionally wet May was the initial clue, and that plus the relatively dry and fine summer (for the 60s) and the December snowstorm clinched it.  Have to admit I was unaware of the autumn deluge.

Finding it hard now to select many other years from my own memory which don't feature "give away" events. Maybe I'll obfuscate the next one a little bit by de-emphasising some of the most significant events while still alluding to them.

 

Edited May 13 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 I had a memory of it being wet but October 1967 was only 6mm drier than October 2023, one of the very wettest. One of those years that the culture was iconic but the weather not so much.

[Dancerwithwings]

The day I turned as a child with double figures, I brought a paper and on the front page was the shuttle showing it’s lift off for the first time…what year what it 

Edited May 13 by Dancerwithwings

[Summer8906]

OK here's another one. This one is another from my own memory but I've obfuscated and de-emphasised some key events and emphasised more obscure ones so as not to give the game away.

January was dry and, in parts of the south unusually sunny. It was largely snowless and on the mild side though there were occasional short-lived cold periods. The month ended intensely anticyclonic with sunshine but also fog lingering in some parts.

February was a rather cold and frosty month with decent amounts of sunshine, and the winter's only lying snow in the south occurred around the 21st. It turned milder and wetter at the end. March was a mild, dull and wet month.

April was often dull except for sunnier weather in the middle of the month, and largely dry though turned cold and unsettled towards the end. Unsettled weather continued into May which was very dull and wet though not especially cold with cyclonic SW-lies dominating - a month that would fit in quite nicely into late 2023/early 2024. It was often thundery.

June 1 was the first properly summery warm, sunny day of the year but was followed by notable overnight thunderstorms. The rest of June was cool, and sometimes rather wet but also dry at times; in the south it was drier than average and rather non-descript. Much of July continued the cool theme though again not overly wet, but things improved significantly later in the summer, from late July onwards. In the warmer phase, there was a notable thundery event.

September was not unlike 1999 (see above) with a warm sunny start, becoming very unsettled, wet and cyclonic. Unlike 1999, however, October was wet and cold, though November was dryish and mild. Temps dropped significantly for the last month of the year but in some parts of the country, precipitation totals were above average.

Edited May 13 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 Took a minute to think but I'm going to vote for 1981!

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! Correct! Note how I tried to make the April cold spell and the December as understated as possible.

I have one more year from my own memory that I'll probably do - aside from that I may need to do a bit of reading up on Monthly Weather Reports to get the detail on some historic ones!

@Dancerwithwings that was 1981 also?

 

Edited May 13 by Summer8906

[Dancerwithwings]

 Summer8906

Yes it was the 12th April 1981

But it took to the 15th to show its madden lift off on the front of our English papers 

Just shows how times have changed

 

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 Oddly the one that stumped me was May. For some reason I thought May 1981 was dry, but it seems to be wet averaging 90mm in the EWP. Some of the May 1981 charts look uncannily similar to right now actually. I've basically read up on so many different archives and Trevor Harley over the past 10 years than going back to about the 1890s I can remember a lot about each month off the top of my head, but I refresh like you do. May 1981 was one of those ones I'd just completely misremembered. 

Onto my next one now. Going to try and downplay any severe parts as to make it harder to guess. *I don't think I've succeeded

January was dry and sunny for most with high pressure dominating. There was a northerly spell early on and again mid-month that brought snow to parts of the SE. It was quite a cold month in the south-east but milder in Scotland.

February was generally mild but did have a spell of easterly winds thanks to a Scandi high. It all collapsed though and the second-half was very mild at times.

March was very mild and quite wet.

April was sunny and dry with near-normal temperatures. There was some summer warmth and winter chill.

May had some rather chilly weather but then turned warm and quite thundery later on.

June was warm but wet and dull with quite a notable heatwave.

July started fair with some hot weather but then deteriorated to cooler but oddly thunderier weather. The second half was very wet and very thundery.

August was cool and dull but not remarkably wet and there were some nicer spells.

September was cool but varied with some windy weather but some pleasant anticyclonic weather too. There was a spell of very chilly weather.

October in contrast was warm but dry but wasn't without it's stormier moments.

November was a proper mixed bag with some mild spells but also cold and snow with snowfall in the south later on.

December was quite cold at times with some heavy snow but did turn mild.

Edited May 13 by LetItSnow!

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! 2017?

With historic years I remember the general theme of many of the summers and winters in particular since around 1950 but much more vague about the springs and autumns, so anything before about 1974 I'd probably have to do a little bit of reading up on. My earliest real memories are 1978 but I have pretty much memorised the vast majority of 1974-77 due to looking them up so often.

Edited May 13 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 Indeed 2017. I have fond memories of the latter half of that year, mainly for the storms, colder synoptics in the warm parts of the year (my thing!) and the snow. Indeed, on a very local level at least, 2017 was one of the snowier years of my life. Not saying much AT ALL in the climate I was born into (b. 2001).

Edited May 13 by LetItSnow!