What has happened to August!

[Lake District Blizzards]

As rain lashes down, the wind blowing like an Autumn storm and unseasonally cool charts looming, it looks like yet another August will be an Autumn month. 

The last decently warm August here where temperatures and sunshine were above average was 2003. Before that it was 1999 i think. 

There has even only been a handful of "average" Augusts since 2000 on the temperature, rainfall and sunshine front. 2005 comes to mind,

maybe 2001 or 2002 and 2015. (But in certain parts of the country each of these months were poor in some respect)

 

 

Obviously i am trying to refer to widespread conditions but still with a bias of my own location - if the weather is great here it is usually a nationwide settled spell. All the Augusts with a n /s split like 2009 count as poor months to me. 

 

August more than any month seems guaranteed to be either anonymously wet, cool or dull or ALL 3. It doesn't have to be summer to get a favourable pattern as we have seen long spells of ridiculous sustained warmth in practically every other month in the last 10-15 years. 

It cant be just coincidence anymore as we would have seen an anomalously warm August pop up like every other month has experienced. 

In an era of record warmth being broken, there must be something preventing sustained spells of good weather at this time of the year

[Bristawl Si]

August is 3 days old. Come back in a couple of weeks and ask the Q.

[B87]

Same has happened here, look at the average highs for August since 2000.  The long term average for August here is 23.2c.

1998: 23.5c

1999: 22.8c

2000: 23.2c

2001: 23.5c

2002: 23.3c

2003: 26.4c

2004: 23.8c

2005: 23.2c

2006: 22.2c

2007: 21.5c

2008: 21.5c

2009: 23.9c

2010: 21.6c

2011: 21.8c

2012: 23.5c

2013: 24.3c

2014: 21.7c

2015: 22.2c

Hopefully the cold pool will leave us alone and we can have a run of Augusts with 24-25c+ average highs, to help us forget about the recent atrocities.

 

How do I edit the line spacing on here?

Edited August 3, 2016 by B87

[Weather-history]

What has happened to August?

Nothing, it is still in the calendar. 

 

I made a post before in the summer 2016 thread on other periods where August was a poor month. 

[Lake District Blizzards]

34 minutes ago, Bristle boy said:

August is 3 days old. Come back in a couple of weeks and ask the Q.

16c 16c 17c 17c 16c 15c 14c 14c 14c is the forecast maximum temperatures here for the next 9 days

whats the point in waiting for the inevitable?

[cheese]

8 minutes ago, Lake District Blizzards said:

16c 16c 17c 17c 16c 15c 14c 14c 14c is the forecast maximum temperatures here for the next 9 days

whats the point in waiting for the inevitable?

Low-mid 20s for most of England over the next few days. Lake District weather tends to peak early in May and June. 

[Lake District Blizzards]

At Keswick, my local Met Office station, the August average to 2005 was 19.9c

since 2005 the highest mean maximum has been 19.8c, so in effect every August since has been below average.

This has actually knocked the 30 year average maximum temperature down 0.5c to 19.4c just because of the Augusts 2006-2015. 

Edited August 3, 2016 by Lake District Blizzards

[Lake District Blizzards]

8 minutes ago, cheese said:

Low-mid 20s for most of England over the next few days. Lake District weather tends to peak early in May and June. 

im sorry but the climatic average high in the Lake District for August is 19c (Keswick) and 20c (Ambleside) 

As i said above, every August since 2005 has in a way been below average at Keswick. 

Yes our weather is best in May / June / July BUT August is so so so much worse in comparison than it has ever been recently.  

Edited August 3, 2016 by Lake District Blizzards

[lassie23]

It's delivered a fine sunny warm day and it's only three days old, that's what's happened to August

[B87]

Here it has delivered 2 cool, wet and overcast days, and 1 average day.

[lassie23]

1 minute ago, B87 said:

Here it has delivered 2 cool, wet and overcast days, and 1 average day.

No sun today in happy hounslow?

[MP-R]

I'd genuinely like to know if there's a specific reason why August has become so pants on such a regular basis. Sure, rubbish Augusts are nothing new, or November, or February or May for that matter, but August in particular has taken a real nosedive since 2006. Even the unremarkable Augusts of the early 2000s and 1990s all managed at least a third if not half the month dry and settled.

[B87]

30 minutes ago, lassie23 said:

No sun today in happy hounslow?

At a guess we've probably had 7-8 hrs of sun today, which is what you'd expect.

hourly high was 23.8c so also normal for early August.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

turned more Atlantic dominated, 5th place behind, Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb

[cheese]

50 minutes ago, I remember Atlantic 252 said:

turned more Atlantic dominated, 5th place behind, Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb

Nov, Dec and Jan have always been the most Atlantic-dominated months. June is historically Atlantic dominated too.

Feb-May is the least Atlantic dominated period of the year. July and August typically the warmest/sunniest months for eastern and southern England.

Edited August 3, 2016 by cheese

[Summer of 95]

What really shows the decline of August is that locally (Shawbury), between 1981 and 2007 only four Augusts failed to record any days above 25C. Interestingly they came in pairs: 1985, 1986, 1992 and 1993. But from 2008 onwards, only 2 Augusts *have* reached 25 C at all- one day in 2011 and two in 2013. That's 6 out of 8 with zero, compared to 4 out of the previous 27. Note that this goes back to the early 1980s, not just the 90s/00s.

Look at some of the August temperatures in those days:

August 1982- 26C on 3rd. August 1983- 28.5C on 19th. August 1987-27C on 20th. August 1988- 28.4C on 7th. None of those are ever mentioned as good Augusts, those sort of temperatures were normal in an average one back then. As for the 90s, August 1996 was close to average temperature: it reached 29.8 and 29.5 on the 18th and 19th. A normal August had days in the high 20s, a good one days in the 30s (1990, 1995). Only very poor ones failed to reach 25, so those since 2007 have been almost all very poor. The stats back that up.

[cheese]

53 minutes ago, Summer of 95 said:

What really shows the decline of August is that locally (Shawbury), between 1981 and 2007 only four Augusts failed to record any days above 25C. Interestingly they came in pairs: 1985, 1986, 1992 and 1993. But from 2008 onwards, only 2 Augusts *have* reached 25 C at all- one day in 2011 and two in 2013. That's 6 out of 8 with zero, compared to 4 out of the previous 27. Note that this goes back to the early 1980s, not just the 90s/00s.

Look at some of the August temperatures in those days:

August 1982- 26C on 3rd. August 1983- 28.5C on 19th. August 1987-27C on 20th. August 1988- 28.4C on 7th. None of those are ever mentioned as good Augusts, those sort of temperatures were normal in an average one back then. As for the 90s, August 1996 was close to average temperature: it reached 29.8 and 29.5 on the 18th and 19th. A normal August had days in the high 20s, a good one days in the 30s (1990, 1995). Only very poor ones failed to reach 25, so those since 2007 have been almost all very poor. The stats back that up.

No August here has failed to reach 25C. Even the truly diabolical August 2014 reached 25C. August 2013 reached 30C. The fact that Shawbury reached 30C in July for the first time in 10 years when we've reached it quite a few times since then speaks volumes I think.

Funnily enough, when the 1991-2020 averages come out August more than likely won't show any decline in temperature. June seems to be the month that has warmed the least over the past 25 years. There's been a remarkable lack of notably warm June's. June 2003 and 2006 were quite warm but nothing exceptional.

Edited August 3, 2016 by cheese

[I remember Atlantic 252]

9 hours ago, cheese said:

Nov, Dec and Jan have always been the most Atlantic-dominated months. June is historically Atlantic dominated too.

Feb-May is the least Atlantic dominated period of the year. July and August typically the warmest/sunniest months for eastern and southern England.

esp, April/ May, they sunniest months of year in northern areas aren't they? where as yes agree about Jul and Aug for South

[Mountain Snow]

Autumn arrived right on cue yesterday with heavy rain and strong winds. I count August as an autumn month now with Summer returning in September. September being the most reliable month in recent years for dry settled weather.

[Iceaxecrampon]

13 hours ago, cheese said:

Low-mid 20s for most of England over the next few days. Lake District weather tends to peak early in May and June. 

Not really - the weather is what it is  - seasonal trends yes maybe but it's all down to the chaos theory - I rarely post nowadays due to that reason.

[Iceaxecrampon]

52 minutes ago, Mountain Snow said:

Autumn arrived right on cue yesterday with heavy rain and strong winds. I count August as an autumn month now with Summer returning in September. September being the most reliable month in recent years for dry settled weather.

Yes - I was on Windermere last night on the "Summer" Cruise

[Azazel]

Agreed. I also class August as an Autumn month.

[Iceaxecrampon]

1 minute ago, Azazel said:

Agreed. I also class August as an Autumn month.

.....the fact that in August we experienced most of the hottest times memorable in the Hills (Great Gable) and on the Beach (Purbeck) and a town (Glastonbury) seems odd to be called Autumn but yes there certainly seems to be a seasonal shift - my wife is convinced this is happening

[B87]

13 hours ago, lassie23 said:

No sun today in happy hounslow?

So it turns out we didn't even reach 5 hours sun yesterday.  Temps were a bit above normal for early August though, with 24.7c.

Still the only normal day we've had out of the first 3.

 

I always saw August as a copy of July.  But these days it's more and more like September.

Edited August 4, 2016 by B87

[lassie23]

20 minutes ago, B87 said:

So it turns out we didn't even reach 5 hours sun yesterday.  Temps were a bit above normal for early August though, with 24.7c.

Still the only normal day we've had out of the first 3.

 

I always saw August as a copy of July.  But these days it's more and more like September.

Next week is looking