Warm/hot Spells Discussion

[lukemc]

Looks like the yearly tradition which started in July 2007 for the Mid July washout followed by Autumnal Northerly is going to happen yet again.

Yes we need the rain but why can it never come in hot thundery blasts like August 2004 or Late June 2005.

We've not even had a heatwave here, we had an hour of sunshine from 2-3pm though not unbroken, other than that it was mostly cloudy.

The weekend of 22-23rd May still stands as the best spell of summery weather here, 26c and nothing but cirrus from jets, incredibly clear and low humidity!

But even the current model output is nowhere near as bad as July 2007 IMO, it cannot get much worse than that summer! I cannot see this summer being anywhere as near as bad as summer 2007 or 2008 even if we get a poor or mediocre second half to the summer, I would however trade off a settled second half of the summer for more thundery activity though.

Luke

[iand61]

Looks like the yearly tradition which started in July 2007 for the Mid July washout followed by Autumnal Northerly is going to happen yet again.

Yes we need the rain but why can it never come in hot thundery blasts like August 2004 or Late June 2005.

We've not even had a heatwave here, we had an hour of sunshine from 2-3pm though not unbroken, other than that it was mostly cloudy.

The weekend of 22-23rd May still stands as the best spell of summery weather here, 26c and nothing but cirrus from jets, incredibly clear and low humidity!

fully agree Conor123, we've has nothing aproaching a heatwave up here. In fat the last week has been average to say the least.

at least us having a hose pipe ban isn't a problem when the ground is so wet that no one needs to unravel the damn thing.

hear's hoping for a better next week than the one we've just had.

[kold weather]

yeah, this week here in London at least, it looks like we'll lose the heat and return closer to average temperatures with 23C-24C on most days with a good amount of sunshine still as the NW/SE split continues..

That pic of Hyde Park is basically what it looks like around the whole of the SE!! It really does look like a desert

I live in quite possibly one of the driest parts of the UK so even in some of the wetter recent summers our grass takes on a hint of brown by the end of the summer, but this year its really quite impressive how yellow it is now turning, been a long while since we had any decent rainfall here though we may get some tomorrow, but we shall see...

There is a noteable split though that has occured in the last 2 weeks or so and whilst its been above average for a good chunk of the country, its only really the SE part of the country that has got upto temps that you call hot, does look like we will now cool after a brief direct import from France of air over the past 2 days but it still looks warm enough, just not hot like it has been recently.

[Wilxy]

Its still 19.5C and humidity rising 79% starting to feel muggy.

[Guest]

Its still 19.5C and humidity rising 79% starting to feel muggy.

Temp here has gone up this evening, Glasgow Airport is now recording a maximum for the day of 17C at ten to midnight when it was 14C during the day :wacko:

[Wilxy]

Temp here has gone up this evening, Glasgow Airport is now recording a maximum for the day of 17C at ten to midnight when it was 14C during the day :wacko:

Wow thats great

[mackerel sky]

Maximum here was 28.9C so a tad cooler than yesterdays 30.4C! Hoping for not a drop of rain tomorrow as it is my son's christening and we have about 30-40 friends and family coming to our house... i've just put up a gazebo and bought loads of plastic chairs. Sky is completely clear at the minute and around 19C, but the GFS fortunately doesn't have any rain tomorrow to speak of, but quite disappointing temperatures - only 22C?!?! Monday a max of 12C!?!?! Hmmm. Always expected Monday to be the worst day of the week, but 12C? Storm potential for late Sunday/early Monday goes further east as I expected - unless tomorrows front stalls enough to allow much higher temps. Dunno. Don't care as long as tomorrow is fine for the little chap.

[Eugene]

Ridiculous - the temperature has barely nudged above 30C for a couple of days and now it's a "heatwave". Pathetic. People in this country need to get a bloody grip.

Look at the forecast for Germany and Poland over the next couple of days - 38, 39C. That is a heatwave. 30C is reached in the VAST MAJORITY of summers in the south of the UK, it's nothing special. Must be a slow news day.

Yes Rob K on TWO is completely right, the real life threatening heat is in mainland europe not here at all.

[Derp Patrol]

Outside of the SE it hasn't been that great really, 25C in Birmingham today not exactly hot really, it's been a long four years since Birmingham recorded 30C+, proper heatwaves are when places outside of the SE/EA can enjoy temps into the early 30's C and for more than one or two days at a time, all the real heat is on the continent we are just on the periphery at times with glancing TM southwesterly flows with no proper hot TC southerly and thundery breakdown, the week ahead looks much cooler and unsettled with synoptics very similar to late June 2007.

I'm surprised that you want hot weather... Were you not complaining about the 'muggy nights' when they were just reaching double figures in early April?

[Iceni]

We reached the 'magic' 32 ° C yesterday lunchtime. It's bearable now @ 22.5 ° C with cloud coming over and going away again.

Roll on tonight/tomorrow morning/hopefully all of Monday and that RAIN!

[conor123]

Only reached 19c here today, 31c in Stockholm, low 30s in parts of Denmark, Sweden & Finland and mid to high 30s through much of Europe, ironic how places almost in the Arctic Circle always get warmer than here every summer nowadays :lol:

[Harry]

Only reached 19c here today, 31c in Stockholm, low 30s in parts of Denmark, Sweden & Finland and mid to high 30s through much of Europe, ironic how places almost in the Arctic Circle always get warmer than here every summer nowadays :lol:

Dont forget we became hotter before Scandinavia (well, England and parts of Wales) - then as the Westerly progression of weather systems kick in, the heat then fades from W to E, invariably meaning the heatwaves on the continent are more intense and longer lasting. We've had numerous 30C+ days here in the last 4 weeks, probably more than Scandinavia. It can only be expected that we'd lose our heat first.

[mackerel sky]

Managed 26.8C here today under clear skies, much better than forecast for the christening. Fantastic day. Paul the Octopus got it correct again.

No sign yet that tommorrow will be a washout... apologies for my lack of interest.

[rmc1987]

Overhyped heatwave now over, better luck next time maybe. If there is going to be a next time. Lots of heat building over Europe and if we could tap in to that then maybe we would have a heatwave but I'm not sure that will happen. Weather looks to turn more unsettled and very little will suggest of any return to anything like this let alone a heatwave.

[johnholmes]

Overhyped heatwave now over, better luck next time maybe. If there is going to be a next time.

I think some people are perhaps a touch greedy!

But I suppose it depends on what you call a heatwave, the average maximum temperature for London itself is 22.8C in July.

The first 11 days, from at least one of the reporting stations inside that area are

26,27,27,25,24,24,24,27,31,29 28.

an average of 26.5C for the 11 days in July, not far off 4C above the average max temperature!

the two days at 29 and 31 being regarded as hot, >7c is called very hot so almost there.

UK Met term this as very warm, 4C above the average for the period in question.

so not bad in most peoples estimation I suspect.

Edited July 11, 2010 by johnholmes

[rmc1987]

I think some people are perhaps a touch greedy!

But I suppose it depends on what you call a heatwave, the average maximum temperature for London itself is 22.8C in July.

The first 11 days, from at least one of the reporting stations inside that area are

26,27,27,25,24,24,24,27,31,29 28.

an average of 26.5C for the 11 days in July, not far off 4C above the average max temperature!

the two days at 29 and 31 being regarded as hot, >7c is called very hot so almost there.

UK Met term this as very warm, 4C above the average for the period in question.

so not bad in most peoples estimation I suspect.

Very much a case of what you call a heatwave! What we have experienced I do not call a heatwave and I think I have acknowledged that what we have experienced has been good before.

So not quite greedy really lol. And to be fair I think overhyped heatwave is quite fair. Decent above average warm sunny weather and yes it lasted but a heatwave it wasn't.

Edited July 11, 2010 by rmc1987

[Derp Patrol]

I think some people are perhaps a touch greedy!

But I suppose it depends on what you call a heatwave, the average maximum temperature for London itself is 22.8C in July.

The first 11 days, from at least one of the reporting stations inside that area are

26,27,27,25,24,24,24,27,31,29 28.

an average of 26.5C for the 11 days in July, not far off 4C above the average max temperature!

the two days at 29 and 31 being regarded as hot, >7c is called very hot so almost there.

UK Met term this as very warm, 4C above the average for the period in question.

so not bad in most peoples estimation I suspect.

Agreed. Although I wouldn't really call it a heatwave, because I think that term is overused whenever it's sunny and warm for a few days, we have had some really great weather recently, plus in the last half of June, the reality is that here in London we've had a month of mostly 25C + temperatures!

[Updraft]

End of the hot weather here in East Kent now I think, tipping down and we have a few flashes of lightning and some Thunder with it, we need it though, it's been dry for a long time!

[Weather-history]

In Manchester, we still haven't exceeded the 27C that was recorded on the 22nd of May.

[Iceni]

Rain's completely missed us — that same snow story all over again — passing 20 miles east, blast it!

[jamesay]

I would agree with "overhype" comments if i lived in the North.

However, the last month has been absolutely glorious in the South East of England, warm (sometimes hot), dry and sunny, with mostly fairly low humidity. We have been verging on what i would call heatwave conditions throughout most of this period, with temps hovering just above or just below 80 deg F. That's very very decent for the UK, partic over an extended period. OK , not 90 F every day for a fortnight, but those types of heatwaves are extremely rare (the mid-late 1990's and early noughties occurances being the exception rather than the rule.

2007 was wet and cool everywhere, including the South East - temps barely reached 20 degrees in London for much of the summer and often 16-18 degrees. In the North, summer barely got started and autumn came early. In stark comparison to preceeding summers it felt appallingly abysmal but it wasnt too far off the mark from many pre 1990's summers gone by in terms of temps (though it was also very wet) . I remember just ONE "stand-out" hot day in August. The rest of the summer was a write-off.

2008 was better in the South, (less rain) though still pretty poor for temperatures everywhere and very wet outside the south East

2009 showed a more sharp regional divide in the summer - my relatives in North West England moaned about the rain and in some parts it was nearly as bad as 2007 (or was perceived as such). In the South East, we had a "good" summer, by and large and the trend of improvement from 2007's base continued.

2010 seems to be showing a similar divide, in temperatures at least, with the South East enjoying a more continental style summer, but this time with much lower temperatures (though not masses of rain this time, it seems) away from the favoured zone, though still warmer than 2007-09 so far.

I have often wondered about cyles in the weather as anyone who shows an interest in meterology does. It is interesting that 2007 and 2008 were both poor summers and i think there have been previous examples of 2 poor summers in sucession then a warming trend. I am sure Mr Data can supply us with details.

The rest of summer 2010. For all the forecast of breakdowns and heavy rains, my hunch - and that's all it is - is that the trend for dry and warm weather in the south east will continue, with cooler temps and rain further north west. It's interesting to note that London has yet again missed out on the forecast heavy rain today and temperatures are at 23 degrees, 4 degrees above what was forecast just yesterday.

In some ways the SE vs The Rest divide could be said to apply to many summers in the UK, but the quite pronounced difference in South East vs The Rest appears to be the theme this year and i expect that to continue.

Edited July 12, 2010 by jamesay

[Wynn D Woo]

Very little rain here overnight, it was still dry when i put the bins out at 11.30pm but had rained a bit by the time i woke up, however by 10am the ground is dry again already so I'm glad i had bothered watering the plants at WC final half time. It is feeling a lot more muggy than yesterday too.

My father remarked on saturday on how he hasnt seen it as dry and brown around here by this time of year, as it is, since 1976.

[NorthantsSnow]

Rain downgrades too. Yesterday (morning) according to both the BBC and GFS we would experience some heavy rain today, up to around 12mm according to the GFS. In just 24 hours that situation has changed to overcast and a bit of light drizzle if we're lucky!

In winter when that happens with snow I'm tearing my hair out and spitting feathers that that never happens with rain in the summer, so I guess I can put that one to bed now!

I really wish the models could be more accurate with precipitation forecasts 1-3 days out, for better or for worse for my location. I don't like being teased.

[Iceni]

Rain downgrades too. Yesterday (morning) according to both the BBC and GFS we would experience some heavy rain today, up to around 12mm according to the GFS. In just 24 hours that situation has changed to overcast and a bit of light drizzle if we're lucky!

In winter when that happens with snow I'm tearing my hair out and spitting feathers that that never happens with rain in the summer, so I guess I can put that one to bed now!

I really wish the models could be more accurate with precipitation forecasts 1-3 days out, for better or for worse for my location. I don't like being teased.

Or even HOURS out! Yesterday we were 12 hours from torrential downpours right over my area according to the BBC and GFS. We got about 0.05 mm which has now dried off even though it's still dull.

[Gavin P]

This is the problem when your in a drought. Even when the scenarios look very favourable to give plenty of rain somehow the rain never seems to come to much. I suspect many of us will get surprsingly small amounts of rain this week, given the overall synoptic pattern of having a 995mbr dart board low over the top of the country.