Summer 2015

[mushymanrob]

The garden is still looking at its best here, despite the familiar countryside scenes typical of late summer. Harvesting, ploughing etc.

 

It really has been a great last 7 days here. The only daytime rain came from a brief shower on Tuesday evening. Apart from that its been consistently warm with plenty of sunshine.

 

well id agree, my lilies are at their peak now...

however, they are 3 weeks later this year then last. i dont keep weather records but i do record my lily flowering dates. my gardens at its best now (see photos in the gardening thread in the lounge) but usually by now things are decidedly on the slide.

 

Personally I think the Anglo-Saxon definition is pretty rubbish. Spring on February 10th? February is one of three months of the year that can be sub-zero overall. Surely this suffices as a good enough definition of Winter (DJF), from which the remaiming seasons can be defined (the following three months Spring, then Summer, then Autumn).

The other point is that the UK recorded its (joint) lowest temperature ever on 11th February 1895, and its hottest on 10th August 2003. By the Anglo-Saxon definition, that puts these records in Spring and Autumn respectively! Not a great definition if you ask me, notwithstanding day lengths.

Anyway, before I continue to bang on too much I'll try and stay on topic.

Another very summery day here. Hot sunshine, cloudless blue skies and a light breeze in the air. The BBQ will be lit tonight!

 

indeed ... however we must consider that in anglo saxon times the climate wasnt the same as it is now, plus i suspect messing with dates/the calendar might have shifted things.

the other point is of course that the seasons arent defined by temperatures alone, and in mild februaries its certainly very springlike by mid month with early flowers starting to flower, birdsong in full spring mode, fresh growth coming out.

but i like 'early' seasons... early summer warmth, early autumn, early winter in december and early spring in feb,... so the saxon dates suit me! however i guess in this day and age the meroleogical dates are pretty accurate.

[Methuselah]

But last year's spring and summer were so warm that my buddlieas flowered twice!

[Milhouse]

This summer can be broken down into some quite distinct parts. June (up until the final 5 days) was almost always cool but at least it was on the dry side. When the Azores high looked like it was approaching it would always get pulled back west followed by northwesterlies. Then came a big change and from Late June to about 2/3 of the way through July it was decent with some stand out days producing some very warm conditions especially around the turn of the month. The last 3rd of July took a huge nosedive and was a throwback to 2007/2012 with some exceptionally cool and wet conditions. But from then on it has drastically improved again with minimal rainfall and temperatures consistently in the range 19-25c.

[DavidHamble57]

OK you have a fair point, please prove why this is a nothing summer, esp as you live in London.

Also John Holmes has already asked you prove that the south east has had a nothing summer.

We await with interest, as rainfall has been well below average and temps have been well above average.

 

 

Temps have not been "well above average" except on the 1st July. In fact most of June had very cool nights. The CET for July also came in below average. It has been an entirely normal summer. As with rain, the east of England can be very dry, nothing weird about that. Anybody can take a look at the met office anomaly charts and see the temperatures have been entirely normal. 

Edited August 9, 2015 by DavidHamble57

[Gael_Force]

Temps have not been "well above average" except on the 1st July. In fact most of June had very cool nights. The CET for July also came in below average. It has been an entirely normal summer. As with rain, the east of England can be very dry, nothing weird about that. Anybody can take a look at the met office anomaly charts and see the temperatures have been entirely normal. 

I'm not well versed in making the NOAA plots so hope this is air temp anomaly for summer to date. It sure wouldn't go down in my records as an average British summer.

[cheese]

July wasn't half as bad as those charts indicate though. It was lovely until the final week and predominantly dry. Certainly wasn't a washout stinker.

June was only slightly below normal as well - largely because of the cold nights.

People need to stop obsessing over what the anomaly charts are saying and make their own judgement based on what conditions are like on the ground.

[DavidHamble57]

Anomaly charts happen to show an objective picture of how temps and rainfall deviated from the average. We all know "Impressions" people have can vary wide and far even regarding exactly the same thing. Let's make climatology and weather into the science it is supposed to be and not some silly opinion fest with people making silly judgments about how the weather "felt" to them. Anyway it's been average rainfall here in July but June was dry,, however parts of eastern england can classify as almost semi-arid some years. Temps bang average, or slightly below, NORMAL.Totally normal NOT WEIRD. Get IT? 

 

 And I don't pay any attention to people with amateur weather stations, met O figs only. Amateur stations are never set up properly or WMO certified equipment and always read 1 or more degrees to high.

Edited August 9, 2015 by DavidHamble57

[seaside 60]

I'm not well versed in making the NOAA plots so hope this is air temp anomaly for summer to date. It sure wouldn't go down in my records as an average British summer.

Hate to say this but its from the 6th Jan to 8th July unless I am mistaken so it cant be used in any way for the last 3 months only as per this year to 1 month ago.

[cheese]

Anomaly charts happen to show an objective picture of how temps and rainfall deviated from the average. We all know "Impressions" people have can vary wide and far even regarding exactly the same thing. Let's make climatology and weather into the science it is supposed to be and not some silly opinion fest with people making silly judgments about how the weather "felt" to them. Anyway it's been average rainfall here in July but June was dry,, however parts of eastern england can classify as almost semi-arid some years. Temps bang average, or slightly below, NORMAL.Totally normal NOT WEIRD. Get IT? 

 

 And I don't pay any attention to people with amateur weather stations, met O figs only. Amateur stations are never set up properly or WMO certified equipment and always read 1 or more degrees to high.

They are objective to a certain degree - but you can't always take them at face value. A month might appear wet, but if most of it fell one one or two days, then it probably didn't feel wet at all - so why should I or anyone else care? That was the case in July - most of it fell on two days, with most days registering no rainfall at all. That seems perfectly sensible to me.

 

And I disagree about amateur stations - some of them are very accurate. You just need to filter the inaccurate ones out and compare them with nearby official stations to see how they match up. If they are similar or the same as nearby official stations then one can presume they're of reasonable accuracy.

[cheese]

Hate to say this but its from the 6th Jan to 8th July unless I am mistaken so it cant be used in any way for the last 3 months only as per this year to 1 month ago.

I think it uses American dates - so 6/1 is 6th June and 8/7 is 7th August.. I think. Those Yanks are an odd bunch.

[seaside 60]

Temps have not been "well above average" except on the 1st July. In fact most of June had very cool nights. The CET for July also came in below average. It has been an entirely normal summer. As with rain, the east of England can be very dry, nothing weird about that. Anybody can take a look at the met office anomaly charts and see the temperatures have been entirely normal. 

OK not wishing to start anything here.

!st July was 14c above average.

Well above average I think roughly is say 2-4c above average.

In fact if you read Weather around world, Spain had its hottest ever July and that came out at 4c over normal, average overall was 27c, CST

Also the CET is just that central. I am referring to this tiny segment as I am allowed to do.

I agree that there are many places further north that have had a real bummer of a summer.

All I was saying was that it had been dryer than normal and warmer than normal in this area, in this area, in this area.

My water butt has only filled up twice this summer since the start of summer and one of those was a T storm.

This topic is about Summer so I am speaking for my area.

 

Of course there have been colder spells, but short lived

[Milhouse]

June was only slightly below normal as well - largely because of the cold nights.

 

 

That is true. The Max temp anomaly chart shows it was average or slightly above for most of England and Wales.

 

For July it was only the east of England where the max was above average but i cant help thinking that the overall CET was influenced by the poor July experienced by the NW. There should be another CET station the other side of the Pennines to even things up.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Milhouse

[seaside 60]

I think it uses American dates - so 6/1 is 6th June and 8/7 is 7th August.. I think. Those Yanks are an odd bunch.

Yep you could be right there, well corrected.

Edited August 9, 2015 by seaside 60

[cheese]

That is true. The Max temp anomaly chart shows it was average or slightly above for most of England and Wales.

 

For July it was only the east of England where the max was above average but i cant help thinking that the overall CET was influenced by the poor July experienced by the NW. There should be another CET station the other side of the Pennines to even things up.

A lot of Met stations have closed over the years so their coverage isn't as good as it used to be. The nearest station to here is Bingley which is at 262m ASL compared to my paltry 76-80m. Linton on Ouse would be the closest to here in terms of temperature but it's 20 miles north.

 

Church Fenton was a good station to use but unfortunately that has closed down as well - and their old Leeds Weather Centre station closed in 2003. For a lot of us we have no reliable data nearby, which is annoying. This is where some amateur stations come in handy.

[DavidHamble57]

They are objective to a certain degree - but you can't always take them at face value. A month might appear wet, but if most of it fell one one or two days, then it probably didn't feel wet at all - so why should I or anyone else care? That was the case in July - most of it fell on two days, with most days registering no rainfall at all. That seems perfectly sensible to me.

 

 

 

 

Cos in some people's cases the amount of rain in the month is important regarding agriculture and more important reasons then whether the month felt wet or not. It would maybe have been better in fact if the rain had fallen more evenly distributed throughout the month, than in a couple of bigger rain events from the agricultural perspective, but if July had been really truly dry there would have been some serious problems growing my plants properly, thankfully it wasn't too bad but if July had been drier than June I would have been worried. 

[seaside 60]

Cos in some people's cases the amount of rain in the month is important regarding agriculture and more important reasons then whether the month felt wet or not. It would maybe have been better in fact if the rain had fallen more evenly distributed throughout the month, than in a couple of bigger rain events from the agricultural perspective, but if July had been really truly dry there would have been some serious problems growing my plants properly, thankfully it wasn't too bad but if July had been drier than June I would have been worried. 

See this again is how people see things with or without the MO or their own weather stations or just there feel of weather from living a long while and taking an interest in it.

Where ever you are in essex se england its not here.

Had I not watered my plants every day bar a few, then my garden would be dead.

If we had average rainfall for July and it all fell on one day which it can often do.

Say 1st July, what do the plants do for the next 30 days, but the history tells us oh no problem we had average rainfall for this month.

I don't mean to be awkward but you cannot ever rely totally on an overall average for a month or season, because it hides many factors in our day to day life.

[DavidHamble57]

See this again is how people see things with or without the MO or their own weather stations or just there feel of weather from living a long while and taking an interest in it.

Where ever you are in essex se england its not here.

Had I not watered my plants every day bar a few, then my garden would be dead.

If we had average rainfall for July and it all fell on one day which it can often do.

Say 1st July, what do the plants do for the next 30 days, but the history tells us oh no problem we had average rainfall for this month.

I don't mean to be awkward but you cannot ever rely totally on an overall average for a month or season, because it hides many factors in our day to day life.

 

 

I expect that you missed much of the heavy rain events did you, I would bet that you must have got a lot less rain than I did locally. In fact I think that's probably the case seeing as you are over on the coast there, that missed some of the storms. That would be indicated by the stats. 

Edited August 9, 2015 by DavidHamble57

[seaside 60]

I expect that you missed much of the heavy rain events did you, I would bet that you must have got a lot less rain than I did locally. 

I really dont know how much rain we missed here, just suffice to say most of it.

Looking at the days of T storms that slid past to the north west of here and the fizzle out fronts that never got here.

Which is why I was saying that my comments where leveled at here, not rest of Essex or UK, which has had considerable more rain than here

Apart from that really crappy sunday where it rained everywhere down here lol..

To be honest I would really be interested in the difference between here and say the CET.

[mushymanrob]

But last year's spring and summer were so warm that my buddlieas flowered twice!

 

thats impossible.

they flower on the end of current years growth, when that flower has finished theres no more growth until the following year. what they do do though is have secondary flowering off side shoots. thats normal and happens every year...its happening even now on mine.

however if you pruned the new growth strainght after flowering it might stimulate new growth which can, late on, bare small flowers.

[Fourty Point Three Degrees]

Both the daily sun newspaper and the mirror are saying Britain is going to be hotter then Tenerife in coming days.  Where are they getting this from?

[Methuselah]

thats impossible.

they flower on the end of current years growth, when that flower has finished theres no more growth until the following year. what they do do though is have secondary flowering off side shoots. thats normal and happens every year...its happening even now on mine.

however if you pruned the new growth strainght after flowering it might stimulate new growth which can, late on, bare small flowers.

That's what happened, Rob; it grew very fast and flowered a month early; after a wee 'prune', it flowered again in September...A pure accident!

[seaside 60]

Ok a little result in my previous conversations with one or two people.

I think one of the reasons the CET is average is that we appear to have had somewhat colder nights at times.

 

Below is a list of the top temps in Essex every week since the 1st June.

This is from WU so maybe not precise.

27, 23, 25, 27, 31, 26, 26, 26, 26, 28c

 

Now if you mean above average is over 30c then yes its been a very cold poor summer lol...

Also of course we could argue that it only reached that temp once each week and every other day was 15c.

However I dont consider that to bad for a summer, because many days down here were not far short of the top temp each week.

Also the rainfall recorded is far higher than what we have recieved down here.

In fact I ma pretty sure we have had almost none for over 10 days to 2 weeks.

[Guest]

Both the daily sun newspaper and the mirror are saying Britain is going to be hotter then Tenerife in coming days.  Where are they getting this from?

 

When they talk about "Britain" they talk exclusively about London.

[Milhouse]

Today is what summer is all about. The warmth and humidity of the day culminating in a torrential downpour around 5ish and that lovely aroma of the first rains after a longish dry spell. Then back to a lovely warm evening.

[Milhouse]

I was just thinking the other day that there has been almost a total lack of North sea haar/low cloud this Summer. Really unusual to get to this stage without at least a few days occurring. Shows how there has been an absence of anything from the east, not only this summer but this year so far (except for during Aprils anticyclonic spells)