Summer 2023 chat

[In Absence of True Seasons]

7 hours ago, 38.7°C said:

There seems to be a lack of moths this year. Not seen any at night as normally come in through the window attracted to the light. Wonder if they've all died due to the cooler weather?

Most likely, or they semi-hibernate due to the wet and cool and windy weather.

Lack of all insect life in my garden really this summer! Since June anyway.

[Sunny76]

5 minutes ago, IcySpicy said:

I think the ratio is similar here in Estonia. Older folks have told that in the 60s-80s there usually was one (maybe two) good summer per decade and the others would be considered poor by today's standard.

I know I might be biased towards warm summers, as I am 25 and grew up in the 2000s and early 2010s, where we had a unusually higher number of good summers. 2006 was the only really good summer in the 00s, but 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007 all had some good months, 2008/2009 were somewhat poor and dull but not the worst of the worst either. Then 2010, 2011, 2013 and 2014 were all good summers here, we got them almost back to back, only 2012 being poor in between.  

The second half of the 2010s was lacking though, 2015 and 2017 being some of the worst summers in the 21st century, 2016 and 2019 being okay at best. Only 2018 was good. Now in the 2020s: 2020 was a copy of 2019, so mediocre. 2021 overall was good here but August was terrible. 2022 was also good, but the spring of 2022 and September 2022 were some of the coldest and worst I have experienced. 2023 is probably going to end up poor, unless August manages to pull itself together. I mean, looking at the stats, it's obvious 2023 wasn't going to be an amazing summer, as we already had two good ones, but I was hoping for the warmest weather to be in July/August and not in June, as I don't like front loaded summers.

I prefer hot summers and grew up during the 80s, because I remembered 83,84 and 89 a lot more. I hated 85, 86, 87 and 88. 
 

Yes, all those poor summers had good weather at times, but I don’t want ‘typical British summers’ to be the norm.

I would gladly take a summer like 1983, 84, 89, 90, 95, 2018 or 22 every year over the rubbish we usually get. 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

1 hour ago, SunSean said:

Had an outdoor party planned ages ago for Saturday and the 20% rain chance has jumped up to 60% as of this morning. What an absolutely garbage summer, can hardly do anything outdoors!

But the CET is close to average!!!

[al78]

26 minutes ago, Sunny76 said:

The sheer lack of anything summery is so notable this year. 

Apart from mid May - mid June where virtually no rain fell and June being the warmest on record.

[al78]

19 minutes ago, Sunny76 said:

Yes, all those poor summers had good weather at times, but I don’t want ‘typical British summers’ to be the norm.

They are going to be by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be "typical". Summers like 2018 and last year are the exception. Anyone who get frustrated about lack of extreme heat in summer or severe cold/snow in winter in the UK is going to spend much of their life in a state of misery.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

1 minute ago, al78 said:

Apart from mid May - mid June where virtually no rain fell and June being the warmest on record.

Indeed, but that period is long gone - both in terms of actual summer but also in terms of people's perceptions.

We've more or less 6 weeks now of this type of weather (in varying degrees of grimness), which effectively is the middle chunk of high summer. 

The good June period we had, in no way saves / makes-up for the period of weather we've had since then.

[al78]

23 minutes ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

But the CET is close to average!!!

It has been a summer of extreme contrasts. June was the warmest on record, July is about 0.7C below the 1991-2020 climatology. Obviously if you take the average of June and July combined it will smooth out the monthly variation and possibly turn out close to average, but doing that destroys temnporal variation and is very misleading. If a month has 29 days of no rain then a severe thunderstorm on day 30 drops six inches of rain, is that a wet month?

[Dusk1983]

Today must be a candidate for one of the worst high summer days ever.

[al78]

12 minutes ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

Indeed, but that period is long gone - both in terms of actual summer but also in terms of people's perceptions.

We've more or less 6 weeks now of this type of weather (in varying degrees of grimness), which effectively is the middle chunk of high summer. 

The good June period we had, in no way saves / makes-up for the period of weather we've had since then.

The claim was about the absence of summer weather this year which is untrue, regardless of how long ago it happened. No-one is denying the summer since then has been very poor or claiming that one good month can compensate for two dreadful ones.

Edited August 2, 2023 by al78

[BlueHedgehog074]

Regarding a slightly earlier comment, to me, I don’t think I would class a month being wet from one day of heavy storms/rain. The dry days would far outweigh the odd day or two of rainy, stormy, weather to feel as though it was wet overall. Plus, the ground would just dry up quickly again. 

Aside from how June has gone this year, desperately need to get hold of a weather repair guy just so this Summer can be fixed! 

[Newben76]

17 minutes ago, Dusk1983 said:

Today must be a candidate for one of the worst high summer days ever.

Well we just had a minute of blue sky, must play the lottery today. 

[rwtwm]

16 minutes ago, Dusk1983 said:

Today must be a candidate for one of the worst high summer days ever.

Second day in a row I've considered turning the light on as I start work! I'm normally quite stoic about the weather in Summer because the additional light and relative warmth still make it preferable to the rest of the year.

This last week or so is really starting to test my resolve though.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

For anyone who is yet to go outside - avoid it if you can, it's horrendous. 

In the 10 min walk from the Tube to my office, the wind below the rain diagonally onto me to the extent that my umbrella was rendered useless.

Suffice to say...these aren't drying out any time soon (as you can see, the back of my trousers are somewhat dry). 

Now got a lovely 2 hour meeting in soaking wet, cold, slim-fit chinos! Just a typical summer day guys! 

 

[Wiggly]

Quote

 

Feels like calm before the storm here. Went on my usual dog walk this morning where it is unusually muddy. Got caught in a brief shower then the sun came back out. All quiet right now so just waiting for the rain to arrive. Hoping the weather really does get better after next week - got carpets to clean! I am not enjoying my six weeks off so far - bet it all clears up just as I go back to work in Sept!  

[IcySpicy]

22 minutes ago, al78 said:

They are going to be by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be "typical". Summers like 2018 and last year are the exception. Anyone who get frustrated about lack of extreme heat in summer or severe cold/snow in winter in the UK is going to spend much of their life in a state of misery.

Sadly this is true and just a reality of living in N Europe, even the best summers are gonna have a dull and cold week or two. And "typical" summers are more like one bad month and two decent ones. But I think this year the problem is:

1) The bad timing of the poor weather ( if early June or late August was poor,most people wouldn't perceive it as so bad)

2) The contrast between the good June and poor July. Most other truly poor summers were already bad in June. It's rare for a summer to start so good and have all the right synoptic patterns and background signals for a hot summer and then crash and burn so badly. It almost feels like one of those airplane crash investigations lol, trying to find all the small factors, which added up to cause this disaster.

3) The lack of warm sunny days between the poor weather. Even in poor summers there usually are breaks of finer weather but this year every single day above 21C has been accompanied by wind and cloud and rain at some point in the day (and actually we haven't had any cooler sunny days either, it's just endless cloudy muck)

[Row w]

1 hour ago, Sunny76 said:

I prefer hot summers and grew up during the 80s, because I remembered 83,84 and 89 a lot more. I hated 85, 86, 87 and 88. 
 

Yes, all those poor summers had good weather at times, but I don’t want ‘typical British summers’ to be the norm.

I would gladly take a summer like 1983, 84, 89, 90, 95, 2018 or 22 every year over the rubbish we usually get. 

You've missed out 2003, epic summer 

[Weather-history]

Did anyone anticipate how wet this July would turn out? Was there any indication that we were looking down the barrel?

I had doubts about this summer in a post back in February fearing it would be more like from the 2007-12 summer grouping but the start of June dispelled my fears so I didn't  expect July would turn out to be the wettest on record for NW England, wetter than July 1988.

 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Weather-history

[B87]

London finished the month with 61.4mm of rain. Notably wet but not extreme when compared to some other Julys.

[Sunny76]

29 minutes ago, IcySpicy said:

Sadly this is true and just a reality of living in N Europe, even the best summers are gonna have a dull and cold week or two. And "typical" summers are more like one bad month and two decent ones. But I think this year the problem is:

1) The bad timing of the poor weather ( if early June or late August was poor,most people wouldn't perceive it as so bad)

2) The contrast between the good June and poor July. Most other truly poor summers were already bad in June. It's rare for a summer to start so good and have all the right synoptic patterns and background signals for a hot summer and then crash and burn so badly. It almost feels like one of those airplane crash investigations lol, trying to find all the small factors, which added up to cause this disaster.

3) The lack of warm sunny days between the poor weather. Even in poor summers there usually are breaks of finer weather but this year every single day above 21C has been accompanied by wind and cloud and rain at some point in the day (and actually we haven't had any cooler sunny days either, it's just endless cloudy muck)

I will have to challenge you a little about a good start to summer.

May 2023 was still pretty chilly until the 8th or 9th, and even some areas like London didn’t fully warm up until the 20th. It was very poor, and there was still a distinct chill in the atmosphere even during those warm late May days where daytime highs reached 20-21c, but the shade was still quite cold and felt like 15-17c.

The cold air from the chilly March and April still lingered on. Even the start of June until the 8th had some cloudy and coolish days. I remember feeling cold in London, even during early June. 
 

I wasn’t expecting a 2018 or 22 repeat, but I was hoping for maybe another 2005 or 91, where the summer would improve gradually. This has not been the case, and for me personally, this would fall comfortably into the 1985-88 category of very poor summers. The warm sunny June is but a distant memory now.

[B87]

The year of rubbish continues (apart from February and June).

[Sunny76]

1 minute ago, B87 said:

The year of rubbish continues (apart from February and June).

I can either see us witnessing a very mild December, or another freak 2010 period that throws us off guard.

 

[B87]

4 minutes ago, Sunny76 said:

I can either see us witnessing a very mild December, or another freak 2010 period that throws us off guard.

 

August needs to be 24c with at least 200 sun hours, leading into a warm, dry and sunny autumn. Almost every month has been wet this year (February dry and May near average).

Also interesting how the -8.4c from January seems to have been forgotten, despite being one of the coldest January nights on record. It's 11c below average, the equivalent of a 35c day in July.

Edited August 2, 2023 by B87

[IcySpicy]

18 minutes ago, Weather-history said:

Did anyone anticipate how wet this July would turn out? Was there any indication that we were looking down the barrel?

I had doubts about this summer in a post back in February fearing it would be more like from the 2007-12 summer grouping but the start of June dispelled my fears so I didn't  expect July would turn out to be the wettest on record for NW England, wetter than July 1988.

 

No I didn't.  In the spring I was a bit worried as both 2021 and 2022 were good summers in Estonia and we usually don't get 3 good summers in a row and we also haven't had a truly poor summer since 2017 (although 2019 and 2020 weren't great either...). Actually the first week of June wasn't great either but then it got very warm and all the models at the time agreed on a warm July and it was looking good. Of course I also worried when the unsettled spell started but I fully expected (well hoped...) for the weather to recover in mid-late July for N Europe. 

Honestly, I am also shocked how bad the UK has it. I would have expected you guys to at least get a few short lived ridges and plumes, not this endless cool dross.

[IcySpicy]

9 minutes ago, Sunny76 said:

I will have to challenge you a little about a good start to summer.

May 2023 was still pretty chilly until the 8th or 9th, and even some areas like London didn’t fully warm up until the 20th. It was very poor, and there was still a distinct chill in the atmosphere even during those warm late May days where daytime highs reached 20-21c, but the shade was still quite cold and felt like 15-17c.

The cold air from the chilly March and April still lingered on. Even the start of June until the 8th had some cloudy and coolish days. I remember feeling cold in London, even during early June. 
 

I wasn’t expecting a 2018 or 22 repeat, but I was hoping for maybe another 2005 or 91, where the summer would improve gradually. This has not been the case, and for me personally, this would fall comfortably into the 1985-88 category of very poor summers. The warm sunny June is but a distant memory now.

Oh, I actually agree with you. May 2023 was better than the last three years (2020-22, which all were unusually poor Mays) for Estonia, but we also suffered from chilly air and night frost. Actually the first week of June was very cold as well, the period from the 2nd to the 5th was especially grim, daytime temps around 14-16C (or even 8-10C near the Norhern coast with windchill) and some places recorded frost at night. Then after that we had a few sunny windy days, around 20C in the sun, but felt more like 14C in the shade. But then it suddenly warmed up around the 12th of June and it stayed very warm (around 25-29C ) until the 30th. This was more than enough to make up for the cold start of the month, but looking at it objectively... it was really only 18-20 days of warm weather.

With "a good start" I meant that I wasn't expecting July to crash and burn so bad after such a good warm-up in June. I was hoping for the warmth to at least stay until late July. I can accept August being bad... or the first week of July being bad but then improving gradually towards the end of the month. This kind of front loaded summer really stinks.

[Nick L]

June is certainly feeling like a distant memory now. We made a very wise choice of booking a holiday to Fuerteventura next month.