Summer of 1997: 20 years ago

[danm]

1997 is one of those summers that doesn't really stick out in the memory or the history books compared to some other summers, however it had a decent enough July and an excellent August - when looking back at the records at Heathrow. 

I realise other areas of the UK may not have been as nice, however I'm basing this on where I live.

June was a relatively cool month, but it started off quite nicely with temperatures at Heathrow ranging between 22c and 27c between the 2nd and 11th. The rest of the month was pretty awful with maximas ranging between 14c and 23c with most days actually in the mid to high teens. The overall average maxima for the month was 20.2c - below average.

 

July was a lot better, warm but not particularly hot. Heathrow had an average maxima of 23.5c - average overall but with a number of warm days. Below are the maximas between the 6th and 30th:

6th: 24.8c

7th: 26.7c

8th: 27.6c

9th: 26.3c 

10th: 22.8c

11th: 23.8c  

12th: 25c

13th: 24.2c

14th: 23c

15th: 25.1c

16th: 22.2c

17th: 20.4c

18th: 20.8c  

19th: 24.8c

20th: 24.9c

21st: 25.4c

22nd: 26.7c 

23rd: 27.7c

24th: 24.4c

25th: 24c

26th: 21.4c

27th: 25.1c

28th: 25.8c

29th: 27.3c

30th: 24.4c

 

August was a classic hot month, with an average maxima at Heathrow of 25.8c. The top temperature at Heathrow was 31.5c on the 10th - nothing exceptional, but it coincided with a consistently very warm to hot month overall.

The period from the 6th to the 24th was glorious:

6th: 26.7c

7th: 26.8c

8th: 30.9c

9th: 28.5c  

10th: 31.5c

11th: 29.6c

12th: 29.5c

13th: 27c

14th: 26.3c

15th: 28.4c

16th: 29.4c 

17th: 24.8c

18th: 29.7c

19th: 31.1c

20th: 29.5c

21st: 26.9c

22nd: 25.1c

23rd: 27.1c

24th: 24.8c

 

What are other people's memories of the summer of '97? 

[hillbilly]

I don't recall anything much about june although I don't think it was poor,we had a wet spell around early july but the rest of the month was pretty decent with lots of warm sunny periods,certainly better than the majority of julys we have had in the last 10 years.August however was an amazing month hot and sunny throughout,similarly to those of 1984,1989 and 1995.What I hadn't realised is that looking on met office data there is only the August of 1995 that was warmer in the entite data for August and there hasn't been a warmer one since .[cet average]

[Portland Paul]

The extended summer, May to September 1997, was excellent in the West Midlands, with the notable exception of around 7th June to 3rd July. The second half of June was very wet, and often cold and dull.

Although May began very warm, there was an unusually cold spell with wintry showers by week 2, then after an unsettled, warming period, the second half was excellent in terms of many sunny, warm days, which spilled over into early June.

A thundery breakdown on the 7th led onto a dire three week period, with periods of persistent rain, and low temperatures at times of just 10 to 12 c in the daytime.

An improvement by 5th July, and a generally warm or very warm July, with sunny periods, followed by an exceptionally hot and sticky August and prolonged sunshine, with easterly winds at times bringing a really stuffy feel from the continent. A bit more unsettled later in the month, and I remember thunderstorms one Sunday (24th or 31st?)

September seemed also to have many settled and sunny days; I remember October also being often dry too but some very cold nights.

 

[Weather-history]

One of those peculiarities, which summer was drier for England and Wales? The perceived good summer of 1997 or the perceived poor summer of 1998?

Summer 1998 by about 60mm.

 

[weatherguru14]

Beautiful start . clear blue skies. shame it will be pouring down again in a couple of hours.. Its not been a dry summer here. It was never going to be after the dry Spring.

No doubt  September and October will be bone dry once more. It won't be warm though. It will be like April  a huge high over Scandinavia dragging in cold winds.

Just annoyed that such  a lovely start to the  day won't last...

[Terminal Moraine]

My main memory of the 1997 summer is that it's the last time I attended Glastonbury and it was an absolute mud fest due to heavy rain and gales on June 26th. The rain eventually died out on the 27th ( Friday) but the mud was so thick and extensive it was a real effort to move about on the site over the next two days.

Apart from that, July was fairly dry with average temperatures and August was very warm, with a severe thunderstorm on the 31st which gave over 44 mm of rain here.

[damianslaw]

Remember it being a preety decent summer punctuated by some very wet spells. August was very humid overall, it felt tropical, with alot of hot weather and some hefty downpours from time to time, quite a thundery month I seem to remember. Despite it being very warm, because of the rain and cloud, it pales into insignificance when set against the wonder of August 1995.. what a month that was!

[danm]