Your Overall Thoughts On Summer 2011

[damianslaw]

Now we are nearing the end of summer 2011 (I know some people believe summer doesn't end proper until the 21st Sept), it would be good to hear people's overall thoughts on summer 2011 as a whole.

A similiar thread started a few weeks back (mid-late July) - which was far to premature. However, I do recall many at the time saying the summer as a whole was ranking as the best since 2006.

For me, overall not a great summer it has to be said. Very poor on the temperature front and quite poor on the sunshine front, but not bad on the rainfall front (compared to the last four summers). I will say 2010 was a bit better namely for the warmer sunnier conditions especially in June. I will rank it has similiar to 2009 despite that summer being very wet, but better than 2007 and 2008. Had temperatures been better I would be ranking it as our best since 2006, but I cannot emphasise enough how consistently cool this summer has been, I think we had had about 5 days only with temps at or higher than 22 degrees - very poor indeed, with far too many days of 17-19 degree maxima often under cloud leaden skies.

Edited August 29, 2011 by damianslaw

[Turnedoutniceagain]

I missed it - I was on nights that week.

[Lake District Blizzard]

Breaking the summer down

June here was very cool and dry with a max of 23.4c and only 3 days above 20c, many days of 13c/14c/15c mean max nearly 2c below average, and sunshine below average. 2/10

July - Very sunny and very few days of rain, but what fell totaled up to average, temps slightly below average, Max 24.9c, 12 days above 20c 7/10

August - Horrendous - wet, dull, cold, as bad as August 2008, worse than 2009 and 1993, almost as bad as 1985, 2c below average, rainfall 130%, only 4 sunny days, sunshine around 50%, Max just 20.0c the one and only day of 20c 0/10

Overall then Summer 2011 scores 3/10 - a very cool summer, with a complete lack of warmth, worse than last year, but best july since 2006

Edited August 29, 2011 by rjd1000

[arcticadventurer]

Very Poor. Lack of heat and sunshine

[sundog]

A very dull summer overall with plenty of cloudy days will be my main memory of this summer. The highest temp i recorded was 25.2c during the end of june.

I definatly think last summer was better due to the fact that the first half of last summer was pretty decent.

[conor123]

It really has been the year without a summer here, its been very very dry indeed, one of the driest Summers in quite a while but despite this it's been the cloudiest and most uneventful summer ever.

Only two days have exceeded 25c and most days this summer have maxed around 17-19c which is just not good enough for me.

The lack of warmth, sunshine and thunderstorms (again) has really let the summer down, and the sheer number of days like today with 100% cloudcover and drizzle has been shocking.

Yes the CET figures wont paint a bad summer but it seems anything remotely interesting has failed to materialise here (even the warmsnap at the end of June was a rather cloudy one).

[ZONE 51]

Generally its been a warm summer here and with a few hot spells scattered through then im not complaining, the convective weather has been reasonable compared to the lack of convective activity during 2010. and i would not say its been a washout, although we have had downpours its not affected the rivers here-they have stayed low, so more dry then wet.

[Roger J Smith]

Return to sender.

Edited August 30, 2011 by Roger J Smith

[Costa Del Fal]

An average but Good summer here compared to many places it seems. Temperatures have rarely been cool, good sunshine throughout, very little rain and extremely dry over the last couple of months. A fair enough amount of Thunderstorms too and 2 or 3 of these have been Night displays! Night shows have been on the up here in recent years it seems.

I rate it a 7/10 and the best since 2006 for here. The only thing thats lacked is a proper heatwave which is a little disappointing but everything else has been just right.

[Rainy]

Another poor summer. Short of sunlight and warmth. Top temps on 3 June, with max 26.6C.

Very few days felt hot.

Too much rain up here. Wettest day 10th Aug with 70.0mm. Only 23 dry days in the 3 "summer" months.

Poor production from the veg garden for 3rd year in succession. Hoping for a warm dry autumn.

[summer blizzard]

worst since 2008 here, it has been fairly cool and showery althoug quite sunny.

[Jack Wales]

Fairly dire here. I don't expect a mediterraenean summer but it would have been nice to have a couple of warm spells or heatwaves. 30C seems like a very long time ago here, actually so does 25C!!

[reef]

Its looking about as average as you can get here. Still 2 days to go, but at present its:

Mean Max: 19.7C (-0.5C)

Mean Min: 11.6C (+0.1C)

Mean Temp: 15.6C (-0.2C)

Rainfall: 96% of average

Sunshine: 96% of average

38 days above 20C and 4 days above 25C. High Maximum 29.7C.

Nothing out of the ordinary really.

[Turnedoutniceagain]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8730125/Parts-of-Britain-suffer-coldest-summer-for-nearly-two-decades.html

Coldest Summer for nearly 20 years.

I get confused; is this due to "Global Warming" or "Climate Change" ???

[EML Network]

This summer for us in Brighton & Hove has been at best bog standard average.

Too much cloud cover has been my major gripe, even on some of the hotter days we had a lot of cloud cover, sea breezes has really pegged the temperatures down, whilst elsewhere has been sweltering.

The only good thing has been the lack of uncomfortable nights, overall then a pretty average summer, to follow what was a pretty average spring (Bar April), which followed a pretty average winter (Bar December)

[Isolated Frost]

TONA, I think 2010 being the hottest or second hottest year on record and the consistently record breaking Arctic ice melts are caused by that - not an average summer in a little island representing less than a percent of the world?

[I remember Atlantic 252]

quite a good summer, as expected warmest spell around Wimbledon and early June, coolest spell last week of Aug

[Stargazer]

I'm not sure where the sweltering weather has been this summer - certainly not here in Reading. Overall I'd say it has been poorer than average here.

A quick summary:

June: cool and wet with sunshine near average.

July: cool, dry and dull

August: cool, wet and rather dull after a promising start.

It looks like all three months will end up 0.5-1.0 deg C below average. August here looks likely to turn out more or less on a par with the dreadful August we had here last year, with the 18th being the coldest and wettest August day I can remember with a daytime maximum of only 13 deg C and nearly 50mm of rain in 6 hours.

[stormforce 10]

a very poor summer here in Ireland. predominately cloudy, cool and often wet.

[Methuselah]

A pretty average summer, I think. I even believe I heard Philip Eden (Five Live) say that, if this summer could be transplanted into the 1960s, it would have been the fourth warmest of that decade...Those were the days!

[Mark Bayley]

I would call it a decent summer, can't really comment on August as i have missed half of it while being in Cyprus. Sunshine amounts have been pretty decent a times, with rainfall nowhere near as bad (in terms of amount) when compared to the past few summers. So no washout. I also witnessed a number of good thunderstorms. Its like Reaf said on a previous post, it seems a very average summer to me.

[Guest]

After a promising start it went down hill considerably - August was particularly disappointing and there were some evenings when we had to switch the CH on.

It's not the kind of summer I would like to become accustomed to.

[AderynCoch]

I'll just copy much of what I posted in the Whining Thread (you can probably guess what I think):

Yet another disappointing summer overall. I was patient during June and July, despite the relative lack of warm, sunny days, due to the fact that it wasn't as bad as recent summers have often been. However, it's now the end of August and things have only deteriorated since then. The lack of days above 20C this summer has been shocking, and whenever 20C has occurred it's usually been accompanied by cloud and/or rain thanks to the prevalence of frustrating NW/SE splits - sunny days have typically occurred in cool polar maritime airmasses with cold winds off the Irish Sea taking the edge off the sunshine, not to mention how few warm nights there have been. There has been a real poverty of summery conditions this summer - Friday's excellent thunderstorm and the odd warm day aside, it's been lacklustre.

Edited August 30, 2011 by AderynCoch

[Milhouse]

Nowhere near enough hot and sunny days for my liking. No proper heatwave, just the odd spell of low to mid 20s. Fact is it has been poor. The CET of 15.2c for July tells you all you need to know about that month.

June was a very forgettable month dominated by low pressure. The only thing that stands out was the beautiful day on the 26th was followed by some stunning heat on the 27th.

August has been an improvement here with more dry days and decent enough temperatures despite a continued lack of high maxima.

June 5/10

July 4/10

August 7/10

[Lancashire Lass]

Very poor for the North West. Cool and very wet. Infact August has been the wettest month of the year so far.

June -

Mean maximum 20c

Mean minimum 9.8c

Total rainfall 41.1mm

Wettest Day 5.4mm 25th

Rain days 20

July -

Mean maximum 22.2c

Mean minimum 11.5c

Total rainfall 53.4mm

Wettest day 15mm 5th

Rain days 11

August -

Mean maximum 21c

Mean minimum 11.9c

Total rainfall 108.9mm

Wettest Day 16.5mm 11th

Rain days 21