Autumn 2016 - the perfect autumn?

[LetItSnow]

It's been five years since, what is in my opinion my favourite autumn in living memory. What I loved about it was the variability and sheer lack of windstorms which gave an incredibly colourful display of leaves. Let's take a look down memory lane.

 

Sep. 2016 was the warmest September for ten years, mostly down to an exceptional heatwave mid-month.

The month opened generally unsettled but quite warm in the south. The 3rd was a rare cloudy, wet and windy day with low pressure overhead, but it wasn't to last. By the 7th we began to draw up very warm air from the south; 29.3C at Gravesend. 

A brief cooler interlude preluded an exceptional hot spell and some big thunderstorms. On the 13th, courtesy of a heat low across France, we dragged up some exceptionally hot upper-air temperatures. This led to 34.4C being recorded at Gravesend (good ole Gravesend). This was the hottest day of the entire year, extrodinarily late. Big thunderstorms followed.

The second-half of the month was much quieter, generally on the dry side but with changeable interludes. Never overly cold either, just seasonable. Overall a very memorable September, especially after quite a mixed summer.

Oct. 2016 was a very quiet month with very little in the way of stormy weather, something which aided a fantastic display of colour on the leaves. It was a very average October for temperature, but more noteworthy was how dry it was, under 40% of the average rainfall. Only E. Scotland recieved near-average rainfall. It was also the sunniest October on record in N. Scotland and sunnier than average overall. It was a very easterly month.

D      espite this, the month did start unsettled under a weak trough. I remember this well, as this brought a sharp drop in temperature and some heavy showers, much needed as it had been bone dry since early July. It didn't last, and soon a Scandinavian high began to take control. A lot of the upper air temperatures throughout this month would have been quite chilly. Sunshine totals weren't particularly high on the east coast, indicative of cloudier, drizzly weather there. I just seem to remember this month for being utterly and wholely benign. It was lovely... if you like that sort of thing! I'm quite surprised looking back at how snowy these synoptics would have been if they occured just two/three months later!

The month ended very warm however, with 22.2c at Trawscoed (Dyfed) on the 31st. 

 

Nov. 2016 was a much colder than average month, in complete contrast with September. It was also very sunny, widely so. It was, in my experience, probably the wintriest month of the whole winter. It was colder than the December and February it preceded!

It bean wintry and on the 5th/6th we had a northerly plunge. It didn't bring any snow to me in Kent but I remember it being cold, frosty and clear, the perfect Bonfire Night conditions. A more changeable period followed and the 14th/15th brought the mildest feeling part of the month. I remember the 15th being very dark, dank, mild and humid. It was the only day of the month like it. Colder conditions soon followed. The 20th/21st brought the only real stormy weather of the entire autumn, but even this was atypical, with low pressure coming up from the southwest. I remember this night quite well. Very windy and wet with very heavy showers tracking northwards. That cleared very quickly and then the month ended under an anticyclone. This period of weather was my favourite of the entire season. This was very cold where I am. From the 25th to the 30th there were some very cold nights with days barely getting much above freezing and sparkling sunshine. It was the perfect way to close a wonderful season.

        

 

The autumn itself came in very close to average in terms of temperature, but was much drier and sunnier than average. What are your thoughts on this autumn? Are they as fond as mine or do you prefer proper wet and windy autumns like 2000 & 2019?

  

[damianslaw]

Quite a seasonal autumn in respect to dry settled warm then cold conditions. Don't remember much in the way of stormy very wet weather. Remember the warm spell in September and the cold frosty period in November. October brings no recollection.

I enjoyed the autumn of 2008, 2010 and 2012 all seasonal. 

[TM1400]

I remember September 2016 quite well very nice warm September and felt summery to me. I remember it being sunny quite often but that September here had 130hrs of Sunshine. But to me that September felt very sunny and warm but that is just my experience. Can’t remember October 2016, probably wasn’t that special to me. But remember November 2016 quite well remember it being cold, and icy. I knew it was a colder November than usual, but that November had no snow sadly I was expecting it to snow due to the cold weather but sadly it never did. However Nov 2017 it snowed, but think 2016 was overall colder. Also I thought that The cold November 2016 would lead to a colder winter but it didn’t really lead to a cold winter, it was mostly quiet here, nothing special except from a bit of falling snow in Jan 2017. 

[A Face like Thunder]

On 11/09/2021 at 00:30, LetItSnow! said:

A brief cooler interlude preluded an exceptional hot spell and some big thunderstorms. On the 13th, courtesy of a heat low across France, we dragged up some exceptionally hot upper-air temperatures. This led to 34.4C being recorded at Gravesend (good ole Gravesend). This was the hottest day of the entire year, extrodinarily late. Big thunderstorms followed.

Six years ago today when the temperature reached 34.4C and then it all went bang! We were in the SE that time and I remember the heat and overnight thunderstorm well. 

[Don]

A horrible September and an similarly horrible winter that followed!

[Summer18]

I was at Haydock races the first weekend of September and I remember it being really wet. The heat in the second week is a real standout, it felt so humid and the thunderstorm in the early evening was terrific. We didn’t have much sun that day just oppressive heat and cloud so I knew a massive storm was imminent.  I remember a Man City Champions League game being called of because of it. 

Can’t really remember much of October but November was good. Cold throughout and it had one of the earliest lying snow events I can remember. Think it was around the 7th. 

The following winter was a complete bore fest mind you. 

[Summer8906]

I missed about half of September 2016, being abroad - including, critically, the extremely hot (34C) and thundery episode from the 12th-15th or so which undoubtedly was the highlight of the month.

The rest of the month, aside from this hot spell was rather overrated to my mind, in particular the first 10 days was often very dull and drizzly with frequent Tm air and two consecutive Saturdays (3rd and 10th) with more prolonged rain. There were only isolated sunnier days. Also the final week of the month was standard changeable westerly conditions.

October 2016 was a very nice month on the whole, and very sunny for the first three weeks, certainly. It started with a very sunny Saturday with scattered showers in a NW-ly and then quickly became anticyclonic and generally very sunny indeed. A cold pool produced a few showers in an E-NEly on the second weekend  (8th/9th).

A small low to the SW produced a further rather disturbed slot around the weekend of the 15th, with higher-DP SW-ly air and a few showers taking over for about three days before dry, sunny easterlies returned.

From the 24th a more general breakdown occurred with a larger low moving in from the SW, displacing the dry sunny easterlies and resulting in very dank, drizzly conditions - quite a change from earlier in the month. This was the point that year when the "extended winter" arrived.

Sometime in early November, colder, brighter conditions arrived with northerlies, I recall the evening of the 6th being cold and very wet but then turning brighter on the 7th and 8th. Many of us will remember the morning of the 9th in a less-than-fond way, that day was mild and sticky, and mild humid conditions dominated the weekend of the 12th/13th, but for the rest of the month colder weather generally dominated. There were a couple of storms in close succession around the 20th, one on the Saturday evening, with cold windy NElies the day after. Strangely I remember few sunny days clearly, though I do remember noting at the time it was a sunny month. Presumably a lot of the sunny days occurred midweek, and have as a result been forgotten. Saturday 26th was dry but very misty with poor visibility, and relatively mild (following some cold days) though I think it turned cold again at the end of the month.

So October, very good. September less impressed by and November cold but a little mixed.

Difficult to find a "perfect autumn" as you have to be very lucky indeed to get all three months good, but I would highly rate Sep-Oct 2003 (November much less so). Perhaps autumn 1985?

Edited September 14, 2022 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

Just to add: winter 16/17 wasn't the worst: December was a drizzlefest, true, and February was a bit non-descript (cloudy, mostly mild, briefly cold, mix of dry and wet episodes) but January had a lot of sunny, frosty weather. Certainly better than 13/14 and 19/20.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Summer8906

[MP-R]

33 minutes ago, Summer8906 said:

Just to add: winter 16/17 wasn't the worst: December was a drizzlefest, true, and February was a bit non-descript (cloudy, mostly mild, briefly cold, mix of dry and wet episodes) but January had a lot of sunny, frosty weather. Certainly better than 13/14 and 19/20.

Agreed… there are worse winters than 16/17, and as you say January and even early and late December were cold and frosty.

I enjoyed the weather during this autumn a lot. Particularly October was very sunny here. My main gripe would be how dull September often was during the short settled interludes… the midmonth thundery spell was notable though! In some ways it was like a less sunny but less cyclonic version of 2006. The cold sunny start and finish to, and very wet stormy period in November were also very memorable.

I quite liked November 2017 too but the autumn overall was less interesting, and of course September was dreadful that year.

[cheeky_monkey]

Autumn 2016 was the last season i spent in the UK ..moved back to Canada just after Xmas 2016..honestly i dont remember anything about it apart from the hot spell Mid Sept.

[Summer of 95]

Two events stand out for autumn 2016:

1) the afternoon of thunderstorms on the 13th September. One of the very few memorable storm events of the 2010s round here and saved that month which was otherwise an awful SE/the rest horror show (didnt top 26C here all month and was often dull while they had days in the 30s)-

2) The 15 minutes of carnage on the 17th November. By far the strongest wind I have ever seen turned up at midday out of the blue and ripped tiles off rooves, snapped trees in half and blew garden furniture across the street. And then it was calm and sunny... and a few miles south of me in town it didnt happen at all. It was a band of intense winds about 5 miles wide that crossed the country (was reported as tornadoes but I think Torro concluded it was some other kind of setup) and here was in the middle of it.

The rest of it I dont recall much at all. For some reason I thought the day with the red sun was October 2016 but it was actually 2017!

[Don]

9 hours ago, Summer8906 said:

Just to add: winter 16/17 wasn't the worst: December was a drizzlefest, true, and February was a bit non-descript (cloudy, mostly mild, briefly cold, mix of dry and wet episodes) but January had a lot of sunny, frosty weather. Certainly better than 13/14 and 19/20.

Winter 2016/17 was similar to 2018/19, although the last day of January and first day of February 2019 produced a decent snow event for parts of the south, whereas the former was largely snowless.

[Summer8906]

20 hours ago, MP-R said:

I quite liked November 2017 too but the autumn overall was less interesting, and of course September was dreadful that year.

Perhaps, yes. I remember November 2017 was similarly sunny to 2016 but a bit milder. A very notable feature of Nov 2017 was the four consecutive sunny Sundays (all four Sundays of the month), this must be close to unprecedented for one of the three darkest (Nov-Jan) months.

October 2017 was generally warm and dry but less sunny than 2016, though featured the red skies of Ophelia which was quite an event. September 2017, yes the least said about that the better. Easily the worst of the 21st century so far (remembering 2000 was in the 20th).

[Summer8906]

12 hours ago, Don said:

Winter 2016/17 was similar to 2018/19, although the last day of January and first day of February 2019 produced a decent snow event for parts of the south, whereas the former was largely snowless.

Yes, I remember noting the similarity of the Januaries in particular. Both were dry (2019 more so), anticyclonic and often frosty - and I remember that snow event. Very much a touch and go thing (will it rain, will it snow) but in the event heavy snow fell in inland Hampshire.

The rest of the winter was a bit different: Dec 2016 was anticyclonic SWly so mostly dull with drizzle, while Dec 2018 was often very wet and cyclonic, becoming dry and dull at the end. Feb 2019 was of course notably warm and sunny, while Feb 2017 much more nondescript, though mild. The Marches also were similar, starting wet and windy and becoming warmer and drier - and both had generally good springs but rather iffy summers.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow]

It's funny how this got attention a year after I posted it  Generally, my opinion of autumn 2016 weatherwise is the same as what I posted. I remember storm watching in September 2016 but for some reason I don't rememeber any storms, so NW Kent may have escaped them. One thing I remember most is how dry the ground remained through the autumn. A dry spell had begun just as the calendar moved into July 2016 and it remained generally dry until July 2017. Until 2022, that was the driest spell we had for quite some time.  

 

I do also have some fond memories of the autumn of 2017 too. September 2017 I really didn't mind at all. It actually brought unexpected and unforecast thunderstorms across SE England on the early hours of the 1st which gave us an absolute battering. Very little in the way of warm weather that month too. I think we only mananged a high of about 23-25C on the 4th and that was within cloud as well. Mid-September 2017 brought very cool but weak northerlies that I remember very well. It did turn sunnier and warmer as we ended the month though. October 2017 will always stand out for the Saharan dust event - the 16th is probably the weirdest weather I've ever seen in my life - it felt like I was on Mars! Very dark reddish brown skies but with no rain. It was compounded by the fact the previous day had been gorgeously warm and sunny. November 2017 was a very nice month with alternating spells of cold and mild weather. It actually brought some heavy snowfall on the 30th which took us into a pretty decent December. 

Autumn 2018 would also go on to be fairly interesting but was ruined by a crap November.

[Summer8906]

22 minutes ago, LetItSnow! said:

Autumn 2018 would also go on to be fairly interesting but was ruined by a crap November.

The run of four generally good Octobers 15-16-17-18 definitely stood out. Since then of course they've been a bit rubbish, I think we're due another one this year. Maybe the 1995 parallels that some have mentioned will continue?