The Midlands Regional Discussion - Part 6

[Costa Del Fal]

So the SE is now in Drought. I reckon South Staffs Water region wont be far off either. EA maps show here in a high risk of drought too. BBC map today shows here has had less than 60% of its average rainfall between March 2011 and January 2012. Says it all really. The next 2 weeks look very dry as usual.

Potentially a serious situation by summer imo.

[conor123]

I had a horrible feeling another Summer 2007 is looming although Id happily take that over most of the summers since as we at least got some very decent thunderstorms and plenty of them in Summer 2007.

[A.J]

On the contrary, I believe it will be a wonderful summer, with wall to wall daytime sunshine with lots of juicy night time thunderstorms for all of the Midlands

(with one exception, as rumour has it that in Telford it will cloudy and drizzly every day from 6am to 9pm :winky: )

[BlueHedgehog074]

Someone must have forgotten to turn on the rain shield in Birmingham with tear drops currently falling from the sky. Been a little while, mind you, since it has rained. Quite a bit windy, too.

Edited February 22, 2012 by Rainbow Snow

[Ian Ballinger]

It's been funny watching the rain radar today, this morning there was a wall of rain heading this way, then it split up and danced all around Telford, our sheild held up as usual, if this were a snow event we would have been going nuts lol

Edited February 22, 2012 by Ian Ballinger

[picog]

It's been funny watching the rain radar today, this morning there was a wall of rain heading this way, then it split up and danced all around Telford, our sheild held up as usual, if this were a snow event we would have been going nuts lol

Same here — big mass of rain just split and fizzled as it came over us. You are dead right, if it had been snow it would have been dreadful.

Edited February 22, 2012 by picog

[conor123]

On the contrary, I believe it will be a wonderful summer, with wall to wall daytime sunshine with lots of juicy night time thunderstorms for all of the Midlands

(with one exception, as rumour has it that in Telford it will cloudy and drizzly every day from 6am to 9pm :winky: )

It's usually 9am to 6pm here :lol: no-one else in the Midlands ever believes it though as it's something that has to be seen to be understood.

[A.J]

It's usually 9am to 6pm here :lol: no-one else in the Midlands ever believes it though as it's something that has to be seen to be understood.

believe it or not, I know what you're talking about...many a time it's been sunny here in summer, but you can see a bank of strato-cumulus encroaching from the the west, it wouldn't surprise if this is the effect of convective cloud bubbling up over the welsh mountains in a westerly based air pattern, then air sinks (a la rain shadow effect) & warms, lapse rates drop and convective clouds flatten into SCu

Edited February 22, 2012 by ajpoolshark

[conor123]

It was noticeable last April here whilst the majority of the country had exceptional warmth and sunshine it was often cloudy here from 10am-4pm and then this extended to 9am - 6pm during the summer.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2011/4/2011_4_Sunshine_Actual.gif

As minor as the difference looks on this map it shows the squares of less sunshine extend out to cover Telford :lol:

The September warm spell by contrast was pretty much cloudless from beginning to end.

I'm expecting that July or August HAS to be decent here this year on the basis that we've not had a good July since 2006 and a good August since?? 2004 I guess as that one was frequently warm and thundery.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

always seems to rain during the day as well, never at night, and when April arrives guarantee an easterly with the usual north sea misty low cloud, when everywhere else sunny

[Bishop Brennan]

The temperature has already climbed to 15.9 here in Knowle. It seems to be much sunnier than had been originally forecast.

I wonder if we can pass 17.0 in the next couple of hours?

Bish

[A.J]

yep, nice & warm outside Bish......summer here we come!

[Bishop Brennan]

yep, nice & warm outside Bish......summer here we come!

We've shot up to 17.4 now, very impressive for this time of year. What's your temp AJ?

Although I'm a coldie, if it's going to be mild it might as well be properly mild rather than the grey dirge we had yesterday.

Bish

[conor123]

I doubt it's quite that mild ^

Absolutely glorious day though thus far, very windy though, currently 14.5c here.

[Bishop Brennan]

I doubt it's quite that mild ^

Absolutely glorious day though thus far, very windy though, currently 14.5c here.

I know what you mean, but it's what my local weatherstation is showing: http://www.monkspathweather.org.uk

Bish

[A.J]

We've shot up to 17.4 now, very impressive for this time of year. What's your temp AJ?

Although I'm a coldie, if it's going to be mild it might as well be properly mild rather than the grey dirge we had yesterday.

Bish

I haven't got a clue TBH, my old weather station is resting peacefully now somewhere in the Wolverhampton Council refuse tip....lol....I would imagine that it's knocking on the door of 60F though, certainly feels like it

[Cheshire Freeze]

15.2 here......Mild but no record breaker

[A.J]

The 'Wunderground' network of amateur weather stations are throwing up a few sperious recordings currently....eg Stourbridge 21C & Penkridge 22C...they must be well sheltered in direct sunshine for those figures to be possible....Looking around the region, 14C-17C are being widely recorded

[Bishop Brennan]

The 'Wunderground' network of amateur weather stations are throwing up a few sperious recordings currently....eg Stourbridge 21C & Penkridge 22C...they must be well sheltered in direct sunshine for those figures to be possible....Looking around the region, 14C-17C are being widely recorded

Very interesting. Certainly here we have virtually clear blue skies and almost no wind at all. 18.4 now :o

Bish

[Cheshire Freeze]

Quite gusty here Bish. Temp climbing slowly now at 15.4

[conor123]

From the looks of the charts my worries for the Summer continue to grow, I mean after such a long long long dry spell it's obvious its going to flip and do the opposite at some point and my betting is that month being May as always :lol:

In an ideal world this sunshine would go on until October with frequent evening-nighttime thunderstorms and weather fronts to top up the rain totals.

A wet month like August 2004 or late June 2005 would be good though with temperature's well into the 20's and big storms by the evening.

[Cheshire Freeze]

From the looks of the charts my worries for the Summer continue to grow, I mean after such a long long long dry spell it's obvious its going to flip and do the opposite at some point and my betting is that month being May as always :lol:

In an ideal world this sunshine would go on until October with frequent evening-nighttime thunderstorms and weather fronts to top up the rain totals.

A wet month like August 2004 or late June 2005 would be good though with temperature's well into the 20's and big storms by the evening.

Oh don't worry, as soon as the water restrictions are put in place, it'll chuck it down non stop for 3 months

[Bishop Brennan]

Quite gusty here Bish. Temp climbing slowly now at 15.4

It's amazing to think that, when all the snow was falling on Feb 4th, there was a lot of excited chatter on the forum about how the models were suggesting potent northerlies and easterlies for the rest of the month, potentially a sub-zero February etc.............now it feels like early May outside lol

Bish

[Cheshire Freeze]

It's amazing to think that, when all the snow was falling on Feb 4th, there was a lot of excited chatter on the forum about how the models were suggesting potent northerlies and easterlies for the rest of the month, potentially a sub-zero February etc.............now it feels like early May outside lol

Bish

Yeah, quite.

I have a south facing house.....the sun is doing wonders for heating for me

[quest4peace]

What a difference currently 18c in telford with a dewpoint of 13c Lol!