What did you think of summer 2024?

[Metwatch]

Thread for everyone's views on this summer, interesting to hear!

[Seasonal Trim]

Hardly any days over 30°, so pretty good if I'm honest.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

away from the SE, it hasn't been great YET, NW areas looking much better next week, could be best of the summer

even the SE had a dreadful Wimbledon with some saying coldest of the 2000's

[*Stormforce~beka*]

Rubbish. Such a cloud fest here. Hardly been on my sunbed at all again this year. 

[sunny_vale]

I put average, which I still consider to be good.

Each month had something to offer, equally each month had a week or so of poor weather but it tended to be concentrated therefore didn’t take over. I’ll always be wishing for the likes of 2018 and 2022, but very happy with what we’ve had down here this year. As long as September is fine and October doesn’t go too ferocious too quickly, I’ll be satisfied until next spring

[iand61]

Obviously it depends on where you live but up here it’s been average and without an improvement in late July and through parts of August it would have been poor.

It’s certainly not been in 2007 or even 2012 territory but the cold and wet spring have, at times made it seem like a long extension of winter but with lighter nights.

[simshady]

Excellent. I don't think the temperature got over 28c here. Would have liked some snow

[Plume Meets BFTE]

Down here, not too bad at all.  The only really wet periods were 13-15 June, 5-15 July, and last Saturday.  Apart from that, rainfall has been rather scarce.

Yes, the first halves of both June and July were notably cool, but then the heat was turned on for a few days at the end of each of these months.  

We also had a good homegrown storm on 1st August which flooded out a park in the town centre.. not known that to happen before.

Not a classic by any means, but no 07/12 either.

[CharlieBear9]

Not too bad at all when you think how hot some previous ones were. The heat was only in short spells thankfully so didn't drag too much. Seems to have got very dry as August has gone on so hopefully we'll have some nice autumn rain soon. Probably the worst part was that it seemed to be windy nearly all the time.

[matt111]

Average here. Some good days, some not so good days. Not much in the way of hot weather but for the most part still reasonably warm. A lot of dry weather too so was at least good enough to do things outside most of the time. The main disappointment was the cloud amounts, hardly had any days with clear skies and many days had little or no sun at all. 

Edited August 31, 2024 by matt111

[DTHFCJ]

Too cloudy,warmish a couple of very warm days but nothing too hot,a fair bit of drizzle,but plenty of dry days,I'd give it a 4/10.... quite a windy old summer too,but definitely far from a washout which is fine by me.

[sarahng]

Here it was poor - south coast.  It hasn't been nice enough to eat outside even once.  Either raining, windy or too cold.  

 

[Catbrainz]

Very average, bland and forgettable I see it as a typical 70s or 80s summer that time travelled to the future. A lot of usable pleasant days but no real exciting weather. First half of July was awful but the rest of summer has been decent. June did offer something to talk about being a cool dry summer month which is something you almost never see those days (Hence why i see it as a 20th century throwback). I doubt many people will talk about this summer in a decades time. 

[raz.org.rain]

From a post the other day;

On 29/08/2024 at 15:46, raz.org.rain said:

With summer coming to an end, my thoughts on this season are somewhat mixed. It's been another poor year, but the fact that we can be faced with such poor synoptics, analogues such as 2012 and 1998, Atlantic northwesterly domination and still manage multiple hot days and some heatwaves demonstrates a lot of things for me.

... I find it noteworthy that even during a notably poor summer we can still see plenty of hot weather. So I guess it shows us that multiple +30°c days are more or less an expected feature of our summer climate now.

[IcySpicy]

I think Estonia had a bit of a better summer than the most of the UK, at least going off what I read on the moans thread. So I'd say it was more on the good side overall but with the caveat that it was disappointing for heatwaves and prolonged sunny spells. For some the lack of very hot days might be a plus, but not for me as I love a good heatwave. This summer we only had 2 days above 30C and every other potential hot day maxed out at 27-29C and was interruptd by showers. Still not bad for Estonia overall, as 2-3 days above 30C is the norm here and getting more than that is rare but usually we get those days during a settled spell where the heat builds over a few days, so it feels longer. This year it was random bursts of heat before a thunderstorm,  so it was difficult to plan summer activities and actually use the very warm weather as it only lasted for half a day usually.

Also the last week of July and first week of August were somewhat poor, it was very unsettled and showery with local flash flooding (at least it wasn't cold though). And to add on to it, we had the best summer synoptics in late May and now in very late August/early September. Sure, it extends the summer but I'd still rather have the best synoptics in July and early August. 

Overall I give it a 7/10. I feel like this summer had a solid "base" as most days were around 21-25C but it was a bit too cloudy and wet and lacked a proper prolonged sunny and hot spell to make it a very memorable summer. 

 raz.org.rain  And this is also true for Estonia. 1998 and 2012 were terrible analogues, 2016 wasn't the greatest either for July-Aug. For most of the summer we didn't have any proper high pressure either, considering that I think this summer was a pretty good outcome. Could have been a lot worse.

[Daniel*]

Forgettable but each month had its nice moments. 

[TonyH]

Dull, cool but rather dry, poor overall.

[Addicks Fan 1981]

 Daniel* it's probably going to be the coolest summer we have had for nine years, the couple of stratosphere warmings we had and the el nin̈o decline definitely didnt help at all or how the arctic sea ice was melting. 

I think our expectations of the summer were driven on by whatever rubbish the media came out with, some were gullible enough to fall for it.   

Think GWV and TWO did a very good job at forecasting this summer. 

They said it would be a backloaded summer, but not with the intense heat as in previous summers.   

[Don]

A decent summer overall, with few uncomfortably hot days and nights.  Pretty dry, too.

[Fred L]

I voted "good" because I'm not a fan of hot weather and this summer wasn't as bad heat-wise as some recent ones.

[Cloud2]

Summer felt like summer which was nice as the past few seasons haven't felt quite right for the time of the year, also grateful that there weren't too many very warm days this year, unlike 2022 or 2023.

[Addicks Fan 1981]

 iand61 you say that about the spring when in actual fact it was the warmest on record although an extremely dull and wet season overall.   

Think this year also we have had a much weaker polar vortex that has been prone to breakouts along with about 3 upwelling CCKW episodes.    

[Don]

19 minutes ago, Addicks Fan 1981 said:

Think GWV and TWO did a very good job at forecasting this summer. 

They said it would be a backloaded summer, but not with the intense heat as in previous summers.   

Don't forget Mark Vogan as his summer forecast was also pretty decent.

[WYorksWeather]

Overall in the poll I voted average. Here are my thoughts in a little more detail.

Background

Overall, an excellent summer for me would feature lots of warm to very warm weather, and consistently on the drier side. I enjoy thunderstorms at the right time (after a few very warm days in a row, perhaps) but not all the time. Hot days are not essential, and if very hot (by which I mean anything towards mid 30s) actually detract from a summer in my view. For example, I prefer 2018 to 2022 as it had more consistent moderate warmth and no 40C heat (though 2022 was interesting from a historic perspective!). Such days are quite rare at my location though.

With that in mind, here are my thoughts. I would note that these are specific to my location, and will likely not generalise to other areas. They of course also won't generalise to people with different preferences. 

June

June started very poorly. The first half was fairly dry apart from one thundery day which delivered 15.8mm. However, up to the halfway mark, only a single day reached 20C, and many days were not much higher than mid-teens, and with a breeze felt even cooler. Some chilly mornings as well, with one minimum down to 4.1C. It would have been acceptable in April, perhaps even May, but a terrible first half of June. Frequent jacket weather.

Fortunately, from around the 18th-26th there was a much warmer run, including the warmest day of the month at 27.8C. Still fairly dull though. Things deteriorated again in the final few days of the month with some cooler conditions and rain. A much improved second half overall, but not a classic.

I'd give June a rating of 3/10.

July

July also started very poorly. July is a warmer month than June so the first half was still warmer than the first half of July, but only four days reached 20C. In addition, quite a lot of wet weather. To continue the analogy, perhaps reasonable for September or October, but not July.

The second half was much warmer and drier, and surpassed the second half of June in duration of the drier weather as well. The warmest day of the month reached 28.2C, also the warmest of the summer. A total of five days over 25C, all in the second half. A very good or excellent second half.

I'd give July a rating of 5/10.

August

Overall, August has been the most consistent month of the summer. There have only been a couple of days that have failed to reach 20C, and the rainfall total is only 22mm, well below average. Only 7 days recorded rain over 1mm. It hasn't quite been a classic month, since only four days reached 25C, and there also haven't been many pure blue sky and sunny type days. However, still a very good one due as much to the consistency as anything else. The second half perhaps slightly poorer than the first, but not a huge amount in it.

I'd give August a rating of 8/10.

Overall

If you sum those up you get 16/30, or 5.3/10. However, I really like the period around the longest day. I take that to be from around the start of June to mid July, to feel summery, and it really failed to deliver for the most part, with only one good 7-10 day span in that period, which was in late June.

Hence, I'm rounding Summer 2024 down to 5/10.

 

[TwisterGirl81]

I’d give it a 5/10, it’s been too cloudy would be my main issue, clear blue days few and far between, even on the many days it started absolutely clear cloud would somehow bubble up by midday not to be seen again until evening. June was our only above average sunshine month but it was cool so not overly enjoyable. July and august slightly below average sunshine, it has been very dry though down here, barely any useable rain, no thunderstorms so lots of times having to use the garden hose to water the garden.

In an ideal summer there would be plenty of warm sunny weather with the odd thunderstorm once a week to keep nature happy but we don’t live in a perfect world.

Last spring/ summer overall wasn’t great but at least we got 6 weeks of really good weather from mid maY, we didn’t get that this year so this year feels worse than last year.

I think when the met office anomoly maps are released tomorrow or Monday I wouldn’t be surprised to see the only places that had a sunnier than average summer will be the far south eastern coastal areas, everywhere else In the south will be average of slightly below. Northern areas will have very poor summer stats. better luck next year for us all.

Edited August 31, 2024 by TwisterGirl81