August 1995 a sizzler!

[damianslaw]

27 years since August 95.. Best August possibly last 100 years here, beating 1976.. it was nearly bone dry, driest on record, warmest on record and second sunniest here.

It came on the back of an excellent latter part to June, and much of July.

Welcome memories of this excellent month. Remembered fondly.. Great music as well.. just a very positive time all round. Take me back!

Edited August 1, 2022 by damianslaw

[MP-R]

I was just a bit too young to remember it clearly, but photos taken during that summer show brown grass and sunshine. We did a family holiday in Cornwall in late July and had lots of sunshine but also two thunderstorms, 26th and 30th I would imagine.

Id love to have another August like it… maybe after a tad more rain in July though.

[damianslaw]

I was 17.. ideal age to enjoy a long hot summer. 

[hillbilly]

What a glorious end to the greatest of summers.Amazing for working outside at the Farm at 1200feetasl and also great for the guy reslating our farm roof,he spent most of that August on it and never expected to get that kind of weather.Spent a lot of my time taking feed to the animals out in the fields as grass was not growing at this time,all but unheard of in the high wet Pennines.

[iand61]

1 hour ago, hillbilly said:

What a glorious end to the greatest of summers.Amazing for working outside at the Farm at 1200feetasl and also great for the guy reslating our farm roof,he spent most of that August on it and never expected to get that kind of weather.Spent a lot of my time taking feed to the animals out in the fields as grass was not growing at this time,all but unheard of in the high wet Pennines.

Hottest August I can remember and on the back of similar conditions throughout June and July.

No question that summer 2022 beats it in terms of maximum temperatures but 1995 was a truly nationwide event without the dreaded north south split.

[hillbilly]

26 minutes ago, iand61 said:

Hottest August I can remember and on the back of similar conditions throughout June and July.

No question that summer 2022 beats it in terms of maximum temperatures but 1995 was a truly nationwide event without the dreaded north south split.

Not sure of your 2022 comparison,1995 was in another league to this year even before August has started.Maximum temperatures mean little compared to Longevity,July 1st 2015 was a record at the time but the summer as a whole was poor,that is a similar story with many recent summers.Other great Augusts are 1983,1984,1989,1990,1997 and 2003.There has'nt been a great August since.

Edited August 2, 2022 by hillbilly

[iand61]

16 minutes ago, hillbilly said:

Not sure of your 2022 comparison,1995 was in another league to this year even before August has started.Maximum temperatures mean little compared to Longevity,July 1st 2015 was a record at the time but the summer as a whole was poor,that is a similar story with many recent summers.Other great Augusts are 1983,1984,1989,1990 and 2003.There has'nt been a great August since.

That’s the point I was making.

2022 has been a great summer for the midlands southwards and it’s looking like at least the first half of August will carry on that way but for the north it’s been average at best and two record breaking hot days don’t matter much in a summer that will be remembered up here more for cloud than anything else.

 

[damianslaw]

21 minutes ago, iand61 said:

That’s the point I was making.

2022 has been a great summer for the midlands southwards and it’s looking like at least the first half of August will carry on that way but for the north it’s been average at best and two record breaking hot days don’t matter much in a summer that will be remembered up here more for cloud than anything else.

 

Today the epitome of the summer so far, not one jot of sunshine..  

[A Face like Thunder]

I was persuaded to bring my holiday forward to the beginning of June 1995 and missed out big time, the fine weather not taking hold until later in the month. In mid-June, I broke down one evening in N Yorkshire and didn't get back to my digs until 5am the following morning, but it was worth it for the sunset and sunrise. I worked in an air conditioned office for most of the summer of 1995, and bl**dy glad I was as well. My abiding memory was of the water leaks which caused major problems throughout that summer.

[Don]

22 hours ago, damianslaw said:

27 years since August 95.. Best August possibly last 100 years here, beating 1976.. it was nearly bone dry, driest on record, warmest on record and second sunniest here.

It came on the back of an excellent latter part to June, and much of July.

Welcome memories of this excellent month. Remembered fondly.. Great music as well.. just a very positive time all round. Take me back!

Fondly remember August 1995 and the summer overall in fact!  Just 18 years old and plenty of summer nights at the pub!  Yes a great period of music and Blur and Oasis remind me of that summer!

[Wold Topper]

15 minutes ago, Don said:

Fondly remember August 1995 and the summer overall in fact!  Just 18 years old and plenty of summer nights at the pub!  Yes a great period of music and Blur and Oasis remind me of that summer!

Ohh those were the days, Ford fiesta xr2 on the drive, brilliant music from Oasis n Blur etc, i was 19 then and that was a summer of fun! #nostalgia

[Don]

1 hour ago, Wold Topper said:

Ohh those were the days, Ford fiesta xr2 on the drive, brilliant music from Oasis n Blur etc, i was 19 then and that was a summer of fun! #nostalgia

Absolutely, a period which will never be replicated again!  I had a Vauxhall Nova (not a GTE!).  The youngsters back then either drove a Ford Fiesta or Vauxhall Nova!

[summer blizzard]

I don't have many memories because I was child (though they are some of my earliest weather memories) but I do recall reading about the large durinal range with 30C Maxima and near 0C minima.

[damianslaw]

I worked in a small cafe room washing up with no windows. Enjoyed it when I could go outside and clear the tables... endless blue sky and sunshine and temps in mid to high 20s.

[Wold Topper]

In my distant memory of 95' it was a long summer of great music and lots of party's with a few occasional  girlfriends! oh and the weather was great  

Edited August 2, 2022 by Wold Topper

[iand61]

Our daughter was born in late spring 1995 and my wife spent what seemed like the entire summer pushing the pram around local parks and getting a deeper and deeper suntan.

myself…..no paid paternity leave then so I took a weeks holiday after the birth and then worked right through until we had a week in Newquay in early September but by that time the summer had gone and most of the time was spent dodging the showers.

My other main memory of the summer was the increasingly serious Pennine water shortage with almost empty reservoirs and water being moved by road.

 

[cheeky_monkey]

On 02/08/2022 at 15:01, Wold Topper said:

Ohh those were the days, Ford fiesta xr2 on the drive, brilliant music from Oasis n Blur etc, i was 19 then and that was a summer of fun! #nostalgia

my wife had a blue Fiesta XR2 that summer ..then we were BF &  GF..I had a crappy Escort company car..was the best summer ever nothing even comes close to 1995..unfortunately that October the XR2 was stolen off our drive and found 2 weeks later burnt out in a field.

[Don]

33 minutes ago, cheeky_monkey said:

my wife had a blue Fiesta XR2 that summer ..then we were BF &  GF..I had a crappy Escort company car..was the best summer ever nothing even comes close to 1995..unfortunately that October the XR2 was stolen off our drive and found 2 weeks later burnt out in a field.

It was the early to mid 90's when hot hatches were frequently stolen, leading to insurance premiums skyrocketing and killing off the hot hatch market!

[cheeky_monkey]

34 minutes ago, Don said:

It was the early to mid 90's when hot hatches were frequently stolen, leading to insurance premiums skyrocketing and killing off the hot hatch market!

yep we replaced it with a Peugeot 205 not the GTI lol

[Don]

3 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

yep we replaced it with a Peugeot 205 not the GTI lol

The Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9 was the daddy of hot hatches!

[Frost HoIIow]

Locally a better summer up here than 76' and 2018. I would say no doubt the best in my 72 years. At the nearest official station at Manchester airport 59 days of summer 1995 reached at or above 20C. And 29 of those reached at or above 25C. That is a pretty extraordinary amount. Maybe not so for the likes of London but up here it certainly is.

[damianslaw]

9 hours ago, Frost HoIIow said:

Locally a better summer up here than 76' and 2018. I would say no doubt the best in my 72 years. At the nearest official station at Manchester airport 59 days of summer 1995 reached at or above 20C. And 29 of those reached at or above 25C. That is a pretty extraordinary amount. Maybe not so for the likes of London but up here it certainly is.

Wasn't alive in 1976.. (1978 I was..) so cannot compare, but yes the best summer in my lifetime so far..  2018 not far behind, followed by 1989. 

[Sunny76]

A glorious summer, with endless sunny clear days between mid June to late August.

It was a mixed bag of music this year, but not a bad one. 
 

94 was a better one musically I feel.

[Sunny76]

On 02/08/2022 at 23:31, Don said:

Absolutely, a period which will never be replicated again!  I had a Vauxhall Nova (not a GTE!).  The youngsters back then either drove a Ford Fiesta or Vauxhall Nova!

I was learning to drive them at the age of 19, in a Vauxhall Corsa lol. 

[Thundery wintry showers]

I still remember it quite well.  It was cooler in the South Shields area than in many other areas of the UK, due to frequent easterly breezes, but despite that, there was very little haar/sea fret after the first couple of days.  Sunshine totals in the region included 267 at Tynemouth and 263 at Sunderland, both easily the highest on record for August.  It got up to around 27-28C towards the end of the month's last heatwave around the 21st.  Further inland, Durham averaged 23.1C and climbed above 30C a couple of times.  Sunshine anomalies were pretty evenly distributed around the country: totals elsewhere included 295 hours at Heathrow, 284 at Manchester Airport and 254 at Glasgow Airport.  Heathrow's average maximum was 27.0.

Also, although most of the month was thunder-free due to the settled anticyclonic weather, thunder was quite widespread in eastern England during a day of sunshine and showers on the 27th.  I still remember a brief but impressive hailstorm with thunder in Cleadon near South Shields/Sunderland that afternoon.  Norwich Weather Centre and Waddington (the nearest official station to Lincoln) also reported thunder. 

Also I think Rhoose in Wales had 85.3mm of rain from a localised thunderstorm near the beginning of the month, and only 5mm for the whole of the rest of the month!

I was actually reminded of August 1995 recently when I saw the forecast charts for next week - the setup does look very similar, though it probably won't sustain for as long.

Edited August 5, 2022 by Thundery wintry showers