Summers in the 60s

[Alex]

With two poor summers so far this decade (2011/2012) which seems to be related to low sunspot activity, I would like to get a first hand account of peoples summer weather experiences in the 60s which also went through a similar stage.

My main points of interest are,

What were the warm ones?

Any memorable days or weeks or months?

Were thunderstorms often present?

Any awful days?

Please discuss.......

[Thundery wintry showers]

Thundery activitiy was not remarkably high during the 1960s, but it was generally higher than in the 1990s and 2000s- probably close to the twentieth-century mean. There were some individual months that were unusually thundery (August 1960 and June 1966 for instance) and the summer of 1968 was characterised by severe thunderstorms in some areas of the country. June 1966 was unusual in that it was notably warm and wet, with a considerable shortage of sunshine in Scotland, though in general the wet months of the 1960s tended to be cooler than most recent wet summer months.

Summer 1969 was the only summer of the 1960s that most would define as "good". June was a very sunny month for most, with warm days and cool nights, and slightly below-average rainfall, though rainfall was quite variable locally due to some thundery downpours. July was generally warm, dry and sunny, while August was also warm and dry, but relatively cloudy.

A common theme of the 1960s was a tendency for sunny Junes with high daytime temperatures, sometimes offset by cool nights, to give way to cloudy, cool and wet conditions during July and August- rather like we've seen in a number of recent years.

Edited February 17, 2013 by Thundery wintry showers

[Keraunic]

Don't know if this is what your looking for...but I remember a very violent thunder storm in the Gedney/Spalding area in Lincolnshire on Friday May 30th 1969. And there were quite a few storms that year as I remember. July and September in York had some pretty good ones. Hope that helps a bit.

[Weather-history]

Manchester Summer indices suggests that the summers of the 1960s were not quite the disaster as they are painted to be.

1960 217

1961 203

1962 197

1963 194

1964 197

1965 189

1966 192

1967 223

1968 215

1969 234

[johnholmes]

yes that fits with my views, without data to back it up. I spent from February 1964 onwards through all the sixties in the Manchester area.

Nothing brilliant but nothing that was really poor all summer long.

Looking at the CET data then July and August in 1965, 66 and 68 each returned values of at least 1C below the current 1971-2000 averages being used.

link below

http://www.personal.dundee.ac.uk/~taharley/centralengav_temperat.htm

Edited May 2, 2013 by johnholmes

[Weather-history]

One thing also to note, there were 5 sub 200mm summers during the 1960s for England and Wales. So they weren't all total washouts which is another thing that is often painted about those summers.

Edited May 2, 2013 by Weather-history

[bringmesunshine]

While it's probably tue that 60's summers weren't that bad it's also the case that there were almost no really long periods of hot sunny weather from 1959 until 1975. For awfulness 1968 is probably as close as we get to 2012 and although 1969 is probably the best it was really only on a par with 2010. What seems to have happened in the 60's is that people got used to summers being unexceptional (a bit like now in many ways) and the great post war years like 1947, 1949 and 1959 were just something you told your children about. And that's why 1975 and '76 were such a shock and are so fondly remembered by those of us who grew up in the early 70's - we literally had never seen anything like it before!