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Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 B87 The period it does will be the date that winter is officially extinct in Southern England.

 

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Twickenham, London
  • Weather Preferences: Csa/Csb
  • Location: Twickenham, London
Posted

 Summer8906 The last few days of February already average 10c for a high.

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 B87 I guess that is almost spring, but when the whole month, including the first half, averages 10C you know winter is becoming extinct.

In the old days 10C used to be the March mean max! First time I looked up London mean maxima month by month, probably in the 80s (so 51-80, I guess), I distinctly remember 10C being the mean max for both March and Nov.

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Manchester
  • Location: Manchester
Posted

 B87 Yeah, especially in recent years I've felt the last two weeks of November are more winter-like than in February. 

  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Twickenham, London
  • Weather Preferences: Csa/Csb
  • Location: Twickenham, London
Posted

 Frigid without looking up the exact figures, the winter months here almost perfectly align with the average high falling below and then surpassing 10c (in early Dec and late Feb respectively).

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

I guess that is almost spring, but when the whole month, including the first half, averages 10C you know winter is becoming extinct.

Winter won't be extinct for southern England, it will be the genuine 'GW era winter'!

That said, winter will be extinct as we know it, I suppose!

Edited by Don
  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 Don Mind you I'd argue that winter is only true winter at this latitude when the mean max is below 10C. (Similarly I'd argue that summer is only true summer when the mean max is above 20).

I suppose winter will become one long pseudo-autumn without the autumn colours. Mind you I am somewhat encouraged that January isn't becoming really silly-mild most years, the last silly-mild one being 2020.

In recent years only 2020 and 2014 have reached 10C mean max at Heathrow. It's interesting that given February's mildness is, in most years (with the exception of 2019) driven by cloudy and moist Atlantic air rather than the coming of spring, that January, when the Atlantic is warmer (and thus Atlantic airmasses 'ought to' be milder than in Feb), is not seeing many silly-mild examples - bringing us back to the question posed by this thread.

 

 

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
Posted (edited)

 Summer8906 That's what I'm saying though, in future 'true' winter will have average maximum temperatures in the south of 10C, and will likely continue to increase as the decades tick by!

However, the recent cold wave, giving significant snow to Texas and even more noteworthy a few inches of snow to parts of Florida, reassures me a little that even with a warmer climate than now, we could still see the occasional cold/snowy outbreak, even in southern England?!

Edited by Don
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 Don Yet sadly IMO, some parts of the south, particularly further west and near the coast, will not see summer maxima increase much and may even see summer sunshine decrease - this seems to have been the pattern in the past 10 years, at least, in this area. Thus much of the south near the coast and/or towards the west may end up with a very boring and invariant climate all year round, perhaps. No idea how typical they will be in the coming years but 2023 and 2024 are the perfect examples - the two most boring weather years of my lifetime!

Edited by Summer8906
  • Insightful 1
Posted
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
  • Location: Longden, Shropshire
Posted

 Summer8906 Not sure about that during summer, might be a short term trend?

Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 Don Hope so but down here summers 2021 and 2020 were also dull and mostly unsettled so it's been the norm for recent years. Further back the second half of 2017, first half of 2016 and second half of 2015 all trended notably towards dull and wet weather. July and August have been particularly affected, June much less so - June is generally the best month of the summer by quite some way.

 

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: SE Wales.
  • Weather Preferences: Cold snowy winters, mild/warm summers and varied shoulder seasons
  • Location: SE Wales.
Posted

Regarding discussion of summers heres the pressure averages for all the 2020-2024 summers. 

2020= Looks very inert to me. I imagine it was cloudy due to a lot of humid stagnant airmasses. Just a very slugglish set up. A weak Euro low but otherwise not much going on

image.thumb.png.8b68a260b55da85f2e2eb1fdacc056e3.png

2021= Very weird NAO+ set up, .Would have been far better if the high over northern Scotland was a few hundred miles over Scandvania so we get warm sunny SElys instead of cloudy NElys. I guess you could also shove the low a few hundred miles south for a UK high too. Pretty close to a classic summer only that the high was too far north so that eastern areas got cold North Sea cloud shoved into them (Very good summer for northern areas by all accounts though). 
image.thumb.png.45d1361267a42e2341f85aec460cc3b8.png

2022= Id call this a NAO+ with a very northerly tracking jet, you've got a Azores/Ural high link up here, lots of cut off lows over the Med which shoved hot air north. 
image.thumb.png.a3a260c8038e4562e92eed1b752805b2.png

2023= West based NAO-. Need I say more? 
image.thumb.png.e916412568a0d6098e8b085704f90dad.png

2024= Extremely strong NAO+. Oddly for NAO+ set ups there's no high over Europe anywhere. 
image.thumb.png.c2e97f003fdf4717746808259456da67.png

 

The only time a west based NAO- can be somewhat palatable or good is when its extremely west based to the point its more of a Canada high and the lows miss us and we can even get a Euro high out of that set up. Something like this is what I refer too Oct 2021. (Its so west based you've actually got lows tracking over Iceland and its almost a NAO+ with a classical NAO+ish NW/SE split). 

image.thumb.png.44cc4349b130420587e65eb3d2874f05.png

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  • Thanks 1
  • Insightful 1
Posted
  • Location: Twickenham, London
  • Weather Preferences: Csa/Csb
  • Location: Twickenham, London
Posted

 Summer8906 Classifying summer and winter that way would make summer considerably longer than winter here. Average high below 10c from approx 1st Dec to 26th Feb. Highs above 20c from approx 30th May to 16th Sep.

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 B87 To be fair they are reasonably accurate ranges for the seasons in the south. While August can be somewhat autumnal at times, I think it's fair to say that early September is no more autumnal than August, especially given that the first 20 days of September often provide the best weather of the entire second half of the year.

Interesting you top 20C before the end of May nowadays; classically, 20C used to be the mean max for the entire month of June.

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: Twickenham, London
  • Weather Preferences: Csa/Csb
  • Location: Twickenham, London
Posted

 Summer8906 The average max for May is 18.4c, and for June 21.6c.

  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Hampshire
  • Weather Preferences: Warm-by-day sunny thundery summers , short cold snowy winters.
  • Location: Hampshire
Posted (edited)

 B87  May hasn't gone up so much overall by the looks of things (I remember a little over 17) but June seems to have gone up by more.

Edited by Summer8906
  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
Posted

The average in February from 1995-2004 is now 5.4C, whereas the 1951-80 average for March was 5.6C. In the 1951-80 period February was 3.7C, so we've essentially lost a month at the back end of winter now.

Warming of months between 1951-80 and 1995-2024:

Jan: 1.1C
Feb: 1.7C
Mar: 1.2C
Apr: 1.1C
May: 0.8C
Jun: 0.6C
Jul: 1.1C
Aug: 1.2C
Sep: 1.0C
Oct: 0.8C
Nov: 0.5C
Dec: 0.4C

All seasons have risen by 0.9-1.1C pretty evenly. February is a clear anomaly. It's hard to say if it is a trend or just bad luck.

It also shows how the UK has actually warmed slightly less than the global average, which is what you would expect as the larger anomalies are in the polar regions. November and December are unusual too, though I suspect 2010 has a lot to do with the latter. For November, 8 have been below average since 2010 alone, so again it could be less of a trend and more luck.

 

Posted
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
  • Location: Windermere 120m asl
Posted (edited)

What seems to be happening is a delayed strengthening of zonal winds, late Nov - early Dec in recent years has increasingly seen a trop-strat disconnect and weak zonal winds, it seems to be taking longer for them to ramp into gear around christmas. Typically after a couple of months they naturally wind down or get taken out by a SSW, usually late Jan/early Feb, but because they are taking a month longer to peak, the timeframes are shifting a month later, hence the stormy atlantic driven Februaries, with weakening delayed until the end of the month instead. March has a greater opportunity to produce cold blocked conditions than Feb nowadays, and even more so April. 

Edited by damianslaw
Posted
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
  • Location: Islington, C. London.
Posted

 reef December is probably taking awhile to pick up because the period from 1995 until 2010 wasn’t especially notable for its mild Decembers compared to the 1980s, and there were a few average and chilly ones - of course 2010 being the Holy Grail. Also June took awhile warming up we had quite a lot of average to cool ones in the 1990s then a spate of warm ones from 2003 to 2007 and then it dipped down again,but June has been making up for lost time since the mid-2010s and we’ve had a lot of very warm ones since.

The 2001-2030 average for December will be quite remarkable I imagine. For as much talk for February warming the amount of mild Decembers since 2011 is insane. We’ve essentially lost two winter months to autumn and spring. January refuses to move much so far though…

There used to be a time when the average for all three months wasn’t that far from each other but I imagine the gap between them will be quite big by the 2001-2030 average. 

Posted
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
  • Location: Skirlaugh, East Yorkshire
Posted

 LetItSnow Yes, 1991 to 2010 had a peculiar frequency of cold Decembers and a real lack of very mild ones. 2011-2040 for December will be unrecognisable from now. Close to half-way through, the 2011-2024 average is already 6.0C, compared to 4.9C for 1991-2020.

In the 1951-80 averages, December was a degree warmer than January and February. I imagine in 15 years we'll be back around there again.

May and June are similar as you say. Both have 1991-2020 averages approaching 12C and 15C, yet each month has struggled to get much above 13C and 16C. Perhaps some very warm ones like June 2023 and May 2024 will become more frequent.

  • Like 1
Posted
  • Location: West Yorkshire
  • Location: West Yorkshire
Posted

 reef Actually based on those numbers the UK has warmed slightly faster than average. Over that 45 year period if you do the maths based on your numbers above the warming for the UK is about 1C.

This chart is global temperatures relative to a 1951-1980 baseline from NASA:

image.thumb.png.314ade1dbb3432c46088601fd346046d.png

Global temperature rise up to 2010 (the centre of a 1995-2024 average) is about 0.8C.

 

  • Insightful 1
Posted
  • Location: Swindon
  • Location: Swindon
Posted

 Summer8906 I recently posted about this somewhere, can't remember where now. If I remember my facts correctly, 11 UK date records have been set this century in February, and only 3 in May. 

  • Like 2
Posted
  • Location: Twickenham, London
  • Weather Preferences: Csa/Csb
  • Location: Twickenham, London
Posted

 reef August being the 2nd most warming month is a shock, especially vs April! It's certainly not done very well in terms of sun either. There are 2 months that are duller in 91-20 vs 81-10; August and October.

Posted
  • Location: Twickenham, London
  • Weather Preferences: Csa/Csb
  • Location: Twickenham, London
Posted

 Summer8906 Back in the 1850-1890 period, June averaged 21.8c at Camden Square.

It's the 51-80 and 61-90 summers which were abnormally cool, by 20th century standards.

  • Like 1

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