Summer of 1972

[Greyhound81]

With a CET of 14.17 this mast have been awful.  Even the summers from 85-88 are not as bad as that.  Does anyone on this forum have any memories of that summer?

Edited June 5, 2022 by Greyhound81

[Greyhound81]

Posted this in the wrong thread.  Could someone please move this to "Historic Weather".  My mistake, sorry.

[Methuselah]

19 minutes ago, Greyhound81 said:

With a CET of 14.17 this mast have been awful.  Even the summers from 85-88 are not as bad as that.  Does anyone on this forum have any memories of that summer?

It was dire. It was so darned dire the only thing about it I can recall were some pop tunes! I'm not sure 1971 was much better, either!

[LetItSnow!]

Monthly Weather Reports of June, July and August of 1972.

After a wet June (away from the east), it turned out to be a very dry summer with a particularly dry August. An exceptionally dry and fine autumn followed in what was a very dry year.

Global temperature anomalies for the world during June, July and August of 1972. To our east it was actually a very hot summer. 

It reminds me of this interview of Cass Elliot from October 1972 where they briefly discussed the weather and remarked how fine the autumn had been, for Cass to jokingly remark how it was one of our worst summers. Being from America, I imagine the persistent coolness of the summer of 1972 was very shocking!

 

[mushymanrob]

Odd.... my memories of 1972 werent bad... well, the 6 weeks holiday werent. Our gang played "lurkey" all holidays, using different sites in the fields. I thought at least August was largely dry and sunny..

[damianslaw]

Whilst the 70s delivered two of the best summers of last 50 years in 1975 and 1976, all the others were either average or quite cold really. 1971, 1972, 1974 were poor. I don't think 77, 78 or 79 were up to much either, nor 70 or 73. 

At the least the winters from 76-77 delivered and early 70. 1971-74 period not great for heat or winter cold lovers. 

[Greyhound81]

1 hour ago, damianslaw said:

Whilst the 70s delivered two of the best summers of last 50 years in 1975 and 1976, all the others were either average or quite cold really. 1971, 1972, 1974 were poor. I don't think 77, 78 or 79 were up to much either, nor 70 or 73. 

At the least the winters from 76-77 delivered and early 70. 1971-74 period not great for heat or winter cold lovers. 

Am I going to get in to trouble for posting this in the wrong sub-forum?  I meant to post it in "Historic Weather".  Sorry.

[Roger J Smith]

June 1972 was dire. I was in England for the whole month visiting my relatives, and it felt more like a cold April than June, some days it never got much past 10 C in the daytime. It was cloudy almost all the time too. I recall it was improving on my way to the airport on 1st of July. The mean CET for June was only 11.8 or so, don't have that file open, but it was almost as cold as the record low values set back in years like 1909 and 1916 and before that probably some time in the Maunder. Even June 1991 was warmer on average. The daytime average must have been even more anomalous with all that cloud preventing frosty nights. The only record set was on the 30th with a minimum around 5 C. 

It was an interesting visit but I'm sure that we were prevented from making quite a few excursions to outdoor locations by the weather that month. I have the impression that the rest of the summer was closer to normal and it was June that is mainly responsible for the low average. 

It was a bit of a shocker for me as the preceding May had been hotter than normal back home (in Ontario) and even when I arrived in late May it was fairly pleasant for a few days, then this awful chill set in and never went away. This was near the end of the coal days and people had their fires going at times, it was that cold outside. Got back home, found out the weather had been awful there as well, although it didn't change phase until maybe the first week of June. During that time, Hurricane Agnes made a loop through the inland northeastern states, with record amounts of rainfall. The spillover from that was several days of record cool daytime highs and several inches of rainfall in Ontario too, so I missed that. And of course the minute I got back it turned hot and dry for most of the month of July. Then August 1972 was unusually cool in Ontario, with one brilliant display of the aurora borealis that I saw from summer camp north of Toronto. The autumn of 1972 was fairly cold in eastern North America. 

[Weather-history]

On 05/06/2022 at 14:08, Greyhound81 said:

With a CET of 14.17 this mast have been awful.  Even the summers from 85-88 are not as bad as that.  Does anyone on this forum have any memories of that summer?

Funny enough I posted in my regional thread on a Guardian article from June 1972 just a few hours before your post. 

 Gordon Manley's analysis

[Stevew]

I remember this summer very clearly.

It was the first time I was allowed go on holiday with some friends rather than my parents.

I'm not sure who made the decision but we plumped for sunny Skegness! We were there for two whole weeks. The weather was so dull and cold and miserable.  I honestly don't remember the sun ever making an appearance. 

Such happy days.......perhaps not in this case!!

 

 

[Summer8906]

An unusual combination of (on the one hand) cool and dull but (on the other) relatively dry appears to sum up this summer, though I don't remember it personally.

As others have said, August doesn't look bad though. It was dry (and very dry in some areas) and above average sunshine almost everywhere.

Based on these stats, August 1972 appears to have been better (drier, sunnier) than the majority of Augusts since 2006.

Perhaps a summer with a lot of (often anticyclonic) northwesterlies?

Edited June 9, 2022 by Summer8906

[A Face like Thunder]

With just three entries for the whole year, one for December 1972, even Philip Eden found it difficult to dig up much dirt on 1972.  For the record, his two entries for the summer of 1972 were:

18-19th July - violent thunderstorms and flooding affecting Kent and Devon (in particular), with sheep killed by lightning on Romney Marsh,

31st July - 1st August - large parts of Norwich were flooded following overnight storms, with 138mm of rain at nearby Old Costessey. 

I worked in central London from 1970 to 1974 and I remember v little about any of the summers during that period. Fortunately, by 1975 and 1976, I was working away from London!

 

[mushymanrob]

On 05/06/2022 at 23:56, damianslaw said:

Whilst the 70s delivered two of the best summers of last 50 years in 1975 and 1976, all the others were either average or quite cold really. 1971, 1972, 1974 were poor. I don't think 77, 78 or 79 were up to much either, nor 70 or 73. 

At the least the winters from 76-77 delivered and early 70. 1971-74 period not great for heat or winter cold lovers. 

June 70 was one of the warmest recorded though... (CET)

[Summer8906]

20 hours ago, A Face like Thunder said:

With just three entries for the whole year, one for December 1972, even Philip Eden found it difficult to dig up much dirt on 1972.  For the record, his two entries for the summer of 1972 were:

18-19th July - violent thunderstorms and flooding affecting Kent and Devon (in particular), with sheep killed by lightning on Romney Marsh,

31st July - 1st August - large parts of Norwich were flooded following overnight storms, with 138mm of rain at nearby Old Costessey. 

I worked in central London from 1970 to 1974 and I remember v little about any of the summers during that period. Fortunately, by 1975 and 1976, I was working away from London!

 

 

Apparently (according to MWR) also July 1971, June 1973 and (to some extent) August 1973 were good months.

Also from MWR: the extended summer of 1971 appeared to be considerably better than the standard summer with an alternating good-bad-good-bad-good pattern from May to September.

The summer of 1973 appeared to have a good June and goodish August but poor July.

Perhaps only summer 1974 was a shocker from that era.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Summer8906

[Harry233]

On 05/06/2022 at 09:48, LetItSnow! said:

Monthly Weather Reports of June, July and August of 1972.

After a wet June (away from the east), it turned out to be a very dry summer with a particularly dry August. An exceptionally dry and fine autumn followed in what was a very dry year.

Global temperature anomalies for the world during June, July and August of 1972. To our east it was actually a very hot summer. 

It reminds me of this interview of Cass Elliot from October 1972 where they briefly discussed the weather and remarked how fine the autumn had been, for Cass to jokingly remark how it was one of our worst summers. Being from America, I imagine the persistent coolness of the summer of 1972 was very shocking!

 

My hometown recording the warmest temperature in July that year.

[mushymanrob]

On 09/06/2022 at 17:16, A Face like Thunder said:

With just three entries for the whole year, one for December 1972, even Philip Eden found it difficult to dig up much dirt on 1972.  For the record, his two entries for the summer of 1972 were:

18-19th July - violent thunderstorms and flooding affecting Kent and Devon (in particular), with sheep killed by lightning on Romney Marsh,

31st July - 1st August - large parts of Norwich were flooded following overnight storms, with 138mm of rain at nearby Old Costessey. 

I worked in central London from 1970 to 1974 and I remember v little about any of the summers during that period. Fortunately, by 1975 and 1976, I was working away from London!

 

How could i forget the great thunderstorm of july 31st? One of the best ever that rolled up the country from france... it was a magnificent beast!

[hillbilly]

5 hours ago, mushymanrob said:

How could i forget the great thunderstorm of july 31st? One of the best ever that rolled up the country from france... it was a magnificent beast!

I remember going to help a local farmer move 4 dead cows that had been killed by lightening,not sure of the year but i would guess mid 1980s.

[Harry's House]

I was living in Essex in 1972. I left school in June and joined the Met Office (working at Stansted Airport) in September. I remember the remarkable lack of warmth in May and June but not much rain so that there were concerns of water shortages, at least in the SE, despite the absence of any heat waves or lasting settled spells. 

The summer did improve though. I went on holiday to Scotland with my Dad in July during a fine anticyclonic spell - unusually good weather for Scotland in July.

August as I remember was at least reasonably good.   

[Weather-history]

Newpaper clippings on 1972