Spring and Summer weather moans

[al78]

On 04/04/2022 at 11:51, TwisterGirl81 said:

I agree with you but spring/summer 2021 were pretty good seasons in the south?

The south covers a large area, but SE England had a poor growing season last year. April was the frostiest for nearly a century. May was cool and wet. June started off with a heatwave then some places got twice the average June rainfall in the second half of the month. July was changeable. August was ok from vague memory. My allotment was very unproductive thanks to persistent anomalies in the wrong direction. I cannot buy locally produced honey in my town market any more because the frosty April wrecked the fruit blossom that the bees use, so there is (or was) a shortage of honey and some fruit. SE England was an anomaly last summer, the only part of the UK to endure a wet summer. It says something when some of the best weather I experienced was when I was backpacking in the west Scottish highlands at the end of May/early June. In contrast to last year, this April is at least resembling something near normal, if a little on the chilly side.

[al78]

On 04/04/2022 at 12:35, lassie23 said:

Whenever I get a job quote for doing the house up, every builder wants to stick wall insulation in before they do up the outside and paint it, and I'm thinking that my house is already like a bread oven in the summer, would that really be a good idea.

Doesn't insulation help to keep the heat out when the outside temperature is higher than the inside, in the same way it helps keep the heat in when the inside is warmer than the outside?

[al78]

On 04/04/2022 at 13:00, mb018538 said:

Yes - 2020 was fantastic. As soon as the first Covid lockdown kicked in the last week of March, we just had weeks of blue skies and low humidity, still, warm sunny days. Best spring I've had in my life without doubt. The sunniest April on record was followed by the sunniest May (which was also the sunniest of any month on record for the UK). Bournemouth had 340 hours of sun in May 2020....averaging 10+ hours of sunshine a day in the UK for an entire month is extremely rare.

I agree 2020 was a fantastic spring and an antidote to the lockdown gloom, the only downside for me being having to manually water my allotment every week due to the lack of rain and running out of stored rainwater (despite having nearly a cubic metre of it). It was frustrating we had to have a spring like that when we couldn't take full advantage of it. I would have so loved to take a holiday in the Scottish highlands, Snowdonia or the Lake District and do some decent hiking or backpacking, but no, forbidden. Classic UK weather trolling, like this year having minimal winter weather in winter then snow in spring.

[TwisterGirl81]

44 minutes ago, al78 said:

The south covers a large area, but SE England had a poor growing season last year. April was the frostiest for nearly a century. May was cool and wet. June started off with a heatwave then some places got twice the average June rainfall in the second half of the month. July was changeable. August was ok from vague memory. My allotment was very unproductive thanks to persistent anomalies in the wrong direction. I cannot buy locally produced honey in my town market any more because the frosty April wrecked the fruit blossom that the bees use, so there is (or was) a shortage of honey and some fruit. SE England was an anomaly last summer, the only part of the UK to endure a wet summer. It says something when some of the best weather I experienced was when I was backpacking in the west Scottish highlands at the end of May/early June. In contrast to last year, this April is at least resembling something near normal, if a little on the chilly side.

I did correct myself, I meant 2020 was overall a pretty good summer for southerners, 2020 was overall below average for southerners, i think the north had a much better summer than us last year if my memory serves me well 

[al78]

5 minutes ago, TwisterGirl81 said:

I did correct myself, I meant 2020 was overall a pretty good summer for southerners, 2020 was overall below average for southerners, i think the north had a much better summer than us last year if my memory serves me well 

Sorry, I saw your post and responded to it before I spotted the correction. I must read the thread more carefully in future.

[TwisterGirl81]

30 minutes ago, al78 said:

Sorry, I saw your post and responded to it before I spotted the correction. I must read the thread more carefully in future.

I should correct it really   Lets hope for a better summer this year, god knows we all bloody need it!

[MP-R]

I think I must be one of the few in the south that didn’t find last summer THAT bad. 

Anyway, as said, fingers crossed for a better one than the last two.

[TwisterGirl81]

1 hour ago, TwisterGirl81 said:

I did correct myself, I meant 2020 was overall a pretty good summer for southerners, 2020 was overall below average for southerners, i think the north had a much better summer than us last year if my memory serves me well 

I meant 2021 was a below average summer in the south, i think i need to go back to bed, it wouldn't let me edit it to correct myself 

 

Edited April 8, 2022 by TwisterGirl81

[al78]

6 hours ago, MP-R said:

I think I must be one of the few in the south that didn’t find last summer THAT bad. 

Anyway, as said, fingers crossed for a better one than the last two.

These anomaly maps say it all. It was the South Central and South East that bore the brunt of the poor weather, the SW didn't have as dull or wet a summer relative to climatology. Much of this was due to the weird stalling of low pressure systems over SE England during the first half of the summer.

[TwisterGirl81]

40 minutes ago, al78 said:

These anomaly maps say it all. It was the South Central and South East that bore the brunt of the poor weather, the SW didn't have as dull or wet a summer relative to climatology. Much of this was due to the weird stalling of low pressure systems over SE England during the first half of the summer.

Yes south east is usually pretty dry, sunny and warm in the summer i find, that being said last summer was poor from my part of the devon at least 

[Guest]

2 hours ago, al78 said:

These anomaly maps say it all. It was the South Central and South East that bore the brunt of the poor weather, the SW didn't have as dull or wet a summer relative to climatology. Much of this was due to the weird stalling of low pressure systems over SE England during the first half of the summer.

And most of the rain came mid June to mid August, early June was quite pleasant. If it hadn’t been for the mid July warm spell it would have been a complete write-off.

[SunSean]

Clear skies forecasted for the morning but the sky is absolutely covered in jet trails and has turned milky already! Absolutely irritating that to get a nice day nowadays, you have to not only rely on the right conditions but also the amount of air travel.

[Sunny76]

48 minutes ago, SunSean said:

Clear skies forecasted for the morning but the sky is absolutely covered in jet trails and has turned milky already! Absolutely irritating that to get a nice day nowadays, you have to not only rely on the right conditions but also the amount of air travel.

I think this just tells us why spring 2020 was so good. It was clear because of the lack of aircraft. Similar to that week in April 2010 when all flights were grounded across the world, due to the Iceland volcano. 
 

A southeast or easterly breeze usually helps to keep the skies clearer. 
 

And in responds to posts about 2021. It was a rotten summer in the London region. 
 

2020 was only slightly better, as the start of June was hot and sunny, which was the extension of the sunny spring during the first lockdown. 
 

As soon as the shops and pubs reopened in mid June, the weather changed, and then we only had brief spells of hot sunny weather, in late June, then a whole month of dull weather in July, with only a few sunny days, and a hot sunny day on the last day of July, which lead to a hot spell in early august, and some thunderstorms mixed in.

After mid August, summer 2020 was pretty much done. 
 

We had a great spring, so it made the dull summer more bearable, however, 2021 only had about 3 weeks of sunny weather between late May and August. August was atrocious. 

[damianslaw]

Often feel this time of year is one of drifting along, with expectations of better warmer times ahead, yet we don't appreciate the current conditions, which on average are often far better than high summer weather. Come late May in some years the best weather of the year has been and gone.. embrace the next 6-7 weeks I always say may be as good as it gets in some years (this is from a NW perspective!), Heat quite often doesn't equate to dry and sunny..

[cheeky_monkey]

in for some record cold this week ..forecast highs of -7c tomorrow and Wedsnesday with lows of -15c which will be record low high and low temperatures for April 12 & 13 to think it was 23c on Friday which was a record high for April 8th

[MP-R]

17 hours ago, damianslaw said:

Often feel this time of year is one of drifting along, with expectations of better warmer times ahead, yet we don't appreciate the current conditions, which on average are often far better than high summer weather. Come late May in some years the best weather of the year has been and gone.. embrace the next 6-7 weeks I always say may be as good as it gets in some years (this is from a NW perspective!), Heat quite often doesn't equate to dry and sunny..

... and there's the difference. Down here the best weather of the year often doesn't arrive UNTIL late May! 

[NEVES SCREAMER]

16c today. Massively better than the 9c (in the sunshine) of Saturday.  Still a bit of an edge to the breeze. But hey! It's April. 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

It was warmer the other day when it was colder! That wind was just too brrr for me

[SummerShower]

I didn't mind today's weather, it felt warm enough (16c or so), and there was an 'almost' thundery look to the sky this afternoon with some large drops of rain.  That's when you know you're heading into the warmer part of the year.

[damianslaw]

3 hours ago, MP-R said:

... and there's the difference. Down here the best weather of the year often doesn't arrive UNTIL late May! 

Yes feel for the NW when summer sets in!

[Guest]

Goodness me, both GFS & ECM are disappointing for the second half of the weekend all of a sudden with a much more progressive solution and low pressure ploughing across the country. 

[cheeky_monkey]

pretty bleak today currently cloudy -12c with light snow blowing around in the wind..have had to put my winter attire back on 

[LetItSnow!]

16 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

pretty bleak today currently cloudy -12c with light snow blowing around in the wind..have had to put my winter attire back on 

While not from Canada, I have a friend who lives in the Chicago area and we were talking about the weather and he said that this year has been pretty bleak so far and that spring hadn't really gotten going properly at all, he then showed me a picture of around his way and there is no vegetation growth whatsoever. We then laughed at how it's going to be warm here this week and going back to cold there. I think 2022 has been quite a coolist start to the year for central northern areas, not so sure about Canada. 

[cheeky_monkey]

24 minutes ago, LetItSnow! said:

While not from Canada, I have a friend who lives in the Chicago area and we were talking about the weather and he said that this year has been pretty bleak so far and that spring hadn't really gotten going properly at all, he then showed me a picture of around his way and there is no vegetation growth whatsoever. We then laughed at how it's going to be warm here this week and going back to cold there. I think 2022 has been quite a coolist start to the year for central northern areas, not so sure about Canada. 

Here in Western Canada its been a pretty average winter temperature wise if somewhat snowier than normal..was very cold the last 2 weeks of December and first week of January since then its been mostly average..one thing that was very unusual was the number of ice storms we had. I had never experienced any before this winter, however we had six in total ..the worst being in mid January when we had freezing rain all day and a temperature of -15c everything was coated in a thick layer of ice...wont be long now until we literally switch to summer weather mode usually happens the back end of April.

[Relativistic]

1 hour ago, LetItSnow! said:

While not from Canada, I have a friend who lives in the Chicago area and we were talking about the weather and he said that this year has been pretty bleak so far and that spring hadn't really gotten going properly at all, he then showed me a picture of around his way and there is no vegetation growth whatsoever. We then laughed at how it's going to be warm here this week and going back to cold there. I think 2022 has been quite a coolist start to the year for central northern areas, not so sure about Canada. 

Was in Chicago for much of March, huge variation from day to day but was chilly/cold most of the time and as you say certainly no vegetation growth. Re warmth, the best we had was 18C one afternoon -- worlds different from the -6C we had when we left the airport, but was down to single figures and cold rain the next day...