Summer 2019 - warm but unsettled

[Harry233]

What is everyone’s memories of this unusual summer? I actually thought it was quite a decent summer it was generally warm and had good spells of weather but equally had its fair share of very wet weather.

 

June 2019 was a month of two halves for me with a terrible first half being rather cool, at times very wet and quite dull it was almost on par with June 2012. However come the 20th it improved a lot and the final 10 days were very pleasant and very warm with lots of sunshine, this was only interrupted by a very heavy thunderstorm on the 29th. June 2019 actually ended up being sunnier than average despite a dull first half. The month was average in terms of temperature and rainfall.

July 2019 was a rather warm month and was a little bit wetter and duller than average but it still had lots of good weather. It had a very good warm spell between the 11th-27th with only two days during this spell failing to exceed 21.C. The spell between the 23rd-26th was especially warm peaking at just shy of 29.C with a of 28.8.C being the highest July temperature since 2013 even just beating 2018’s high of 28.4.C. This left a very wet and dull spell between the 27th-31st which brought most the months rainfall.

August 2019 was a very wet month but surprisingly most of the rain fell within 3 days between the 8th-10th with a total of 86mm out of 139mm falling during that period. There was significant flooding in my area on the 9th. A spell that reminded me a lot of August 2004 with maxima being well into the mid 20’s and being very humid. After this spell however the rest of August was actually very pleasant with some warm sunshine and the odd cooler, cloudier day. A high of 27.5.C on the 25th was the hottest August day in my area since 2003 which goes to show how poor most Augusts were in the late 00’s/early 10’s. 
 

Overall it was generally a good summer but it certainly wasn't without its very wet spells as well the summer overall was slightly warmer and sunnier than average but was quite a bit wetter than usual. 

[B87]

First 2 weeks of June were 2012 bad.

Rest of the summer was generally warm and sunny, with rainfall coming from infrequent heavy showers.

August was very warm, dry and sunny.

Overall, it was warmer and wetter than average, with average sunshine.

Edited May 14, 2024 by B87

[Harry233]

 B87 first half of June was appallingly bad. Interesting to know that it was a dry August for your area, I must’ve been very unlucky

[B87]

 Harry233 Summer 2019 in London was as follows...

June: av max 21.8c, 82mm, 191 hours

July: av max 25.5c, 51mm, 219 hours

August: av max 25.2c, 34mm, 223 hours

[Summer8906]

Poor-ish on the whole, though (thankfully) I missed June, and I also missed the first half of July.

June looks like it was very dull and wet, and cool by day, for around three weeks before a short intensely hot spell in the last three days or so, the typical heat spike of contemporary summers.

The first half of July looked quite pleasant with warm temps albeit rather cloudy, it was then briefly unsettled and somewhat cool before the extreme heat spike. The final few days were pleasant enough. Thus July was clearly the best month of the summer, though in this location it looked like it was slightly cloudy.

August was changeable and rather humid on the whole with SW-lies which brought cool temps here due to onshore winds. The first three days were fine, then it was cool, breezy and changeable but also rather clammy and humid for two weeks before a 7-day very hot spell leading up to, and including, the Bank Holiday. The final 5 days were cloudy and changeable once again. I think August was actually slightly drier than average due to a lack of heavy rain however there was frequent light rain in the middle 2 weeks and again in the final 5 days.

The weather we have today (Tuesday) here represents very typical conditions for August 2019.

June - very poor; July - average; August - slightly on the poor side. Overall: slightly on the poor side.

Edited May 14, 2024 by Summer8906

[danm]

Aside from the first half of June, 2019 was a good Summer. Very often warm, sometimes hot and lots of sunshine in July and August. 

[Harry233]

 Summer8906 sounds a pretty grim summer for yourself

 danm I rate it well, wasn’t perfect but had it been a lot drier it would’ve came close to some of the best

[Summer8906]

 Harry233 Well, it wasn't as bad as 2007, 2008, 2011 or 2012. And marginally better than 2015 or 2020, as well as considerably better than 2021 or 2023.

Perhaps comparable to 2017 in overall rating, but of course Autumn 2019 was much worse than Autumn 2017.

But I certainly didn't rate it as a good one. I'm just glad I missed all but the first two days of the June.

 

 

Edited May 14, 2024 by Summer8906

[Harry233]

 Summer8906 I enjoyed autumn 2019. I had a pretty decent September with a good warm spell in the third week and October and November were both rather cold and settled months. November especially had some very severe frosts.

[Metwatch]

Thought I had posted about this summer a while ago but seems not. Not a particularly memorable one but had some fantastic thundery breakdowns, and the most notable one was on the night of 23-24th July. Incredible lightning display and gust front around 1-2am with another round of storms arriving before 4am. I also remember some potent storms at the start of August in Leicester in the evening.

Also known for reaching 38.7 °C on 25 July in Cambridge, breaking (at the time before 2022's record) the previous national all time record of 38.5°C in Brogdale, Kent, 10th August 2003. A short RMets article attached below on those July storms and heatwave:

july 2019 thunderstorms UK.pdf

Edited September 28, 2024 by Metwatch

[Weather-history]

Funny old summer.  There was two weeks of no rain then a very wet mid July-mid August period

The night thunderstorm of early hours of 24th July

The hot day of 25th July 

 

[Billy Hicks]

I remember some nice hot spells from this summer and it didn’t feel like too much of a comedown from the famously astonishing 2018, perhaps helped by spending most of June backpacking around Europe so I missed the terrible weather described by others in this thread. There was of course the then-hottest day ever on the 25th July, me and some friends went to Brighton but ironically not only was it cloudier there than hoped, it even briefly rained! I agree with whoever said on this forum that it is good that 2022 beat it as it’s far more fitting for the hottest day to be during a prolonged heatwave than the much more mixed summer that 2019 was, but it did at least give me the sunset photo seen above.

The August hot spell was also really lovely and so was much of the September which made me hope it would lead to a 2014-style sunny and warm autumn, unfortunately once October began things went spectacularly bad and most of my memories for the rest of that season involve me getting soaked.

[Summerlover2006]

One interesting aspect of this summer is that at the time it was only the 2nd summer this century to record 90F in every summer month.

[Thundery wintry showers]

I remember it being a very hot summer over most of continental central and western Europe with temperatures up into the high 30s and 40s Celsius at times. On occasion this heat spread into Britain from the south bringing short-lived hot spells, including the (at the time) record breaking one in late July, and some of these were followed by impressive thundery breakdowns. I remember a spell of dry and moderately warm weather in early to mid July, with variable amounts of sunshine, and a fine spell in the late August bank holiday, but I also vaguely remember August being wet in places.

As for June, I remember the second week being exceptionally wet in parts of eastern England, and I had thunderstorms in Exeter on the 10th before the dull and wet weather spread in. Late June had record 850hPa temperatures but they didn't translate to record surface temperatures, although one day got well into the 30s Celsius in the south-east while eastern Scotland had some spectacular thunderstorms. Overall June was a wet month with average temperatures but for most it was nothing like as dull as the Junes of 2012 and 2016.

[Harry233]

 Thundery wintry showers We had an amazing thunderstorm late on the 29th early into the 30th that year. I remember being on a night out on that and it being extremely warm and humid and then about 3am it was like a monsoon at hit, got absolutely drenched