August 2008: horrific

[MP-R]

11 hours ago, Don said:

August 2008 was also atrocious in the south west.  I had a two week holiday in Cornwall and literally there was only one day that was decent and that's bad even by Cornwall's standards!  The rest of the time was rain, rain, rain!!  We didn't have an Indian summer that year either, with winter arriving with a vengeance in October! 

And this is why I never holiday in the UK. Short trips of a few days at a time only.

[cheeky_monkey]

6 hours ago, MP-R said:

And this is why I never holiday in the UK. Short trips of a few days at a time only.

i went of holiday to the UK at the beginning of July 2013 was hot and sunny everyday..also last week of August last year again was hot and sunny

[East Lancs Rain]

3 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

i went of holiday to the UK at the beginning of July 2013 was hot and sunny everyday..also last week of August last year again was hot and sunny

 Going on holiday in the UK is a real lottery. Sometimes you can strike lucky and get weather like abroad – like I got when I went to Paignton in South Devon at the end of August 2017. However you can get cold (or worse, a washout) weather on holiday too,  that happened to me when I went to the Tyne coast at the end of May 2018, a very chilly easterly wind coming off the North Sea and thick fog for the first few days when most of the country were bathed in warm sunshine.  Also when I went to Barmouth on the west coast of Wales in August last year, was persistently 17°C with a chilly westerly wind coming off the sea. Annoyingly, the weather warmed up on the day I left and it was a very hot journey on the way back home. 

 

 Whereas going somewhere like Ibiza or Rome you’re almost guaranteed to get hot and sunny weather. 

[cheeky_monkey]

3 hours ago, East Lancs Rain said:

 

 

 Whereas going somewhere like Ibiza or Rome you’re almost guaranteed to get hot and sunny weather. 

You say that i remember spending a week in Singapore followed by 2 weeks in the Maldives on my honeymoon..first 8 days in the Maldives were idyllic the last 6 days it rained an rained with strong winds as we caught the back end of the monsoon..poor couple who we left with only spent a week there and she was crying her eyes out expecting days of sunshine and beach weather.

[I remember Atlantic 252]

4 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

i went of holiday to the UK at the beginning of July 2013 was hot and sunny everyday..also last week of August last year again was hot and sunny

Aye remember that, just after Murray won Wimbledon

[East Lancs Rain]

9 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:You say that i remember spending a week in Singapore followed by 2 weeks in the Maldives on my honeymoon..first 8 days in the Maldives were idyllic the last 6 days it rained an rained with strong winds as we caught the back end of the monsoon..poor couple who we left with only spent a week there and she was crying her eyes out expecting days of sunshine and beach weather.

Maldives - Wikipedia

EN.M.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Maldives being near India has a tropical monsoon climate though, so while hot and humid weather can be pretty much guaranteed, you would be silly not to expect some very heavy downpours. Singapore is known for its hot and humid climate. Whenever I check the forecast it always says 30° and thunderstorms. Whereas in the med you are pretty much guaranteed to get hot and sunny weather during the summer because it is a Mediterranean climate with very little rainfall during the summer, apart from the odd thunderstorm.  India in the monsoon season is definitely not the place to go if you want hot sunny beach weather. 

[East Lancs Rain]

6 minutes ago, I remember Atlantic 252 said:

Aye remember that, just after Murray won Wimbledon

Yep.  Summer 2013 was generally a very happy time for the UK.  The weather was great, we were climbing out of the recession, employment was on the up and there wasn’t too many bad things happening in the world IIRC. 

 

Fast forward to 2020 and we have had floods, riots, the biggest virus the world has ever seen, the best spring in the years that we couldn’t take full advantage of,  mass unemployment and absolutely awful summer weather.

[Weather-history]

On 06/07/2020 at 22:43, East Lancs Rain said:

I think summer 2015, despite the poor reputation, came out quite close to average for temperature, precipitation and sunshine.

 June 2015 was a dry month, 25th driest June on record for our region. Unfortunately July and August didn't carry on in the same vein although they were not up there with those great summer washout months.

 

 

[hillbilly]

On 06/07/2020 at 20:37, Thundershine said:

Well, you are wrong. I've recorded the weather since 2007 and these are my numbers right here:

2008

June

Avg max: 18.4

Avg min: 10.7

Sun hours: 172

Rain: 54.2

July

Avg max: 21.2

Avg min: 12.5

Sun hours: 179.2

Rain: 90.7

August

Avg max: 20.7

Avg min: 13.6

Sun hours: 116.3

Rain: 58.9

2008 avg temp: 16.2

2008 sun: 468 hours

2008 rain: 204mm

Summer 2011

June

Avg max: 16.7

Avg min: 8.4

Sun: 175.3

Rain: 70

July

Avg max: 18.2

Avg max 9.6

Sun: 167.5

Rain: 104

August

Avg max: 17.3

Avg min: 10.6

Sun: 105.2 (lol)

Rain: 60

2011 Avg temp: 13.5

2011 Sun: 448

2011 Rain: 234

Summer 2015

June

Avg Max: 16.8

Avg min: 8.2

sun: 184.3

rain: 67

July

Avg max: 17.8

Avg min: 10.2

sun: 166.1

rain: 72

August

Avg max: 18.1

Avg min: 10.8

sun: 114.9

rain: 65.8

2015 Avg temp: 13.7

2015 sun: 466

2015 rain: 204

Well, I'm gonna play the numbers game and there they are: from my records. I have emboldened the final figures for all three of these summers. Now you tell me with your index and "instincts" that 2008 was "worse" than 2011 and 2015. I think NOT.

In the locations I have lived in, 2011 and 2015 were substantially colder years. Also, they had less sun than 2008 in total. Also, they had equal or more rainfall than 2008. There is no question that 2008 was a better summer than 2011 and 2015. Your figures say one thing, mine say another.

Yes i have to agree,we are all different  and someones good is another mans poor but for me in the Pennines 2008 was far worse then 2011 or 2015.It ranks alongside 2012 with the latter cooler and wetter and 2008 being consistantly damp and cloudy.My summers are based on Farming and farmers had a terrible time in 2008 that was no where near as bad in the others.Grass crops for hay were being abandoned here when only a fraction of hay was made in late June and very early July at the end of August it looked as though the summer was over but amazingly by the 3rd week of September summer arrived,the Farmers in this area worked round the clock to get crops in during that unexpected warm period,unbelievable!

Edited July 8, 2020 by hillbilly

[cheeky_monkey]

19 hours ago, East Lancs Rain said:

Maldives - Wikipedia

EN.M.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Maldives being near India has a tropical monsoon climate though, so while hot and humid weather can be pretty much guaranteed, you would be silly not to expect some very heavy downpours. Singapore is known for its hot and humid climate. Whenever I check the forecast it always says 30° and thunderstorms. Whereas in the med you are pretty much guaranteed to get hot and sunny weather during the summer because it is a Mediterranean climate with very little rainfall during the summer, apart from the odd thunderstorm.  India in the monsoon season is definitely not the place to go if you want hot sunny beach weather. 

did not rain once or any thunderstorms when i was in Singapore which is very unusual..we went to the Maldives supposedly after the monsoon season had finished late Sept..but it decided to take a last kick at the can that year.

[Summer of 95]

3 hours ago, hillbilly said:

Yes i have to agree,we are all different  and someones good is another mans poor but for me in the Pennines 2008 was far worse then 2011 or 2015.It ranks alongside 2012 with the latter cooler and wetter and 2008 being consistantly damp and cloudy.My summers are based on Farming and farmers had a terrible time in 2008 that was no where near as bad in the others.Grass crops for hay were being abandoned here when only a fraction of hay was made in late June and very early July at the end of August it looked as though the summer was over but amazingly by the 3rd week of September summer arrived,the Farmers in this area worked round the clock to get crops in during that unexpected warm period,unbelievable!

I can vaguely remember at the end of summer 2008 news reports saying that farmers were calling it the worst harvest in 40 or 50 years. Both for lack of growth and difficulty in reaping it I think. I think it was the persistent rain and cloud that just wouldn't let the ground dry out and the fact that August was particularly damp and dull. 2007 and 2012 presumably not quite so bad because August was the driest summer month? I remember the shops having difficulty getting hold of some vegetables in early summer 2012 and saying it was due to the weather. I wonder what 1992 was like, that was a horribly wet August but followed a warm May and June.

[LetItSnow]

Images from August 2008 convey the grey nature of this month...

2 August 2008

5 August 2008

 

10 August 2008

11 August 2008

12 August 2008

 

25 August 2008

 

29 August 2008

31 August 2008

 

[Don]

 LetItSnow! At least it's not raining in most of those photos! 

[Philip]

I remember watching a Nottinghamshire cricket match at Trent Bridge on 19 August, which was the first time the new floodlights were being used and it was very cool and overcast with some drizzle. 
exactly a week later, England played South Africa in a one day international there. It wasn’t as cold but still cool and cloudy. South Africa got bowled out cheaply and the floodlights didn’t need to be used. 

[StretfordEnd1996]

The main thing I remember about August 2008 is going on a camping trip to North Wales on the bank holiday weekend. We arrived early evening possibly on the Friday/Saturday and put up our tent in a nice pleasant evening of sunshine, and took it down about 7am the next morning as it was flooded, broken and not even usable, and then went home.