Long dull spells

[baddie]

This is a forum to discuss lengthy periods of time with none or very little sunshine

Example
First 6 days of March 2021/22/23
16th-29th Decmeber 2021
20th-28th November 2019
25th December 2018 - 7th January 2019
7th-13th April 2018
10th-16th February 2015
22nd-31st May 2014
15th-24th March 2013
20th-26th February 2013

And much more
 

[hillbilly]

December 1992 only had 7.2 hours of sunshine all month in these parts.The nearest as dull was January 1996 with 10.3hrs.Just to put into perspective the dullest months since 1996 are December 2015 and January 2013 buth with 23 hrs of sunshine.

[SummerShower]

For me, I remember November 2013 as being exceptionally dull (and very boring) with practically no sunshine here.

The month was anticyclonic, so this might not be the same everywhere.  I never hear of this being mentioned a dull month tbh but it just sticks out as very dull.

[Weather Enthusiast91]

The first period of dull weather that came to mind when I saw the title of this thread was winter 2016/17. Anticyclonic gloom almost throughout with very little in the way of sunshine.

Summer 2021 is another one that was quite dull. It had its moments, but was mostly very bland in terms of sunshine.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Weather Enthusiast91

[cheeky_monkey]

2002 was pretty dull year from Memory. Much like 1980 i remember as being dull..but that could just be the summer 

[damianslaw]

Very wet westerly/south westerly November's, December's and January's tend to produce very little sunshine here, and we've had many of them recently. Dec 2013 and 2015 worse culprits.

I distinctly remember the first 10 days Jan 2012 bringing no sun here, just rain and cloud. 

 

[baddie]

For some reason, the first week of March is always anticyclonic but dull and cold. I am always wondering why, and I only figured this out when Marches 21, 22 and 23 were all completely sunless for the first 6 days. Perhaps gloomy North-Easterlies are become a theme in early March

[baddie]

3 hours ago, Weather Enthusiast91 said:

The first period of dull weather that came to mind when I saw the title of this thread was winter 2016/17. Anticyclonic gloom almost throughout with very little in the way of sunshine.

Summer 2021 is another one that was quite dull. It had its moments, but was mostly very bland in terms of sunshine.

Feb 2017 was the worst of them, I only recorded 60% of average sunshine. Feb 2011 and 2013 was similarly awful. I remember Jan 2017 was weirdly duller than average in Nottingham, but sunny as a whole, Londoners got lucky with sunshine that month.

Edited September 20, 2023 by baddie

[Weather-history]

August 2008 and this ran into early September.

June 1987 was shocking here, only 89 hrs by the 26th. 

[Weather Enthusiast91]

2 hours ago, Weather-history said:

August 2008 and this ran into early September.

June 1987 was shocking here, only 89 hrs by the 26th. 

From what I can remember, it remained mostly dull up until the 20th of September which saw a huge change to more settled conditions for the remainder of the month.

As for the August, it was the worst (if not the worst) one in my lifetime.

[bomdabass]

December 2021.....grim

[Summer8906]

Going back from the present, and based on perception rather than figures:

I'm sure I'd have found July 2023 and the first and last weeks of August pretty desperate had I been at home. Thankfully I wasn't.

March 2023 was very dull as well as wet, a thoroughly unpleasant month. Thankfully the last such bad March was in 1981 so hopefully it'll be a good while until we have something like that again.

Second half of December 2022 and first 10 days or so of January 2023, a very unpleasant dull and damp period.

October-November-December 2021 seemed pretty dull, although at least November was dry.

Mid-June to mid-August 2021 was distinctly dull for summer too, though being summer, not quite SAD-inducing. Only really relented for that week or so around mid-July when it briefly turned hot.

Late September 2019 to mid-March 2020 seemed to me particularly desperately and depressingly dull, as well as damp. Probably the worst prolonged period of bad weather I've lived through.

In fact generally, the period from September 2019 to December 2021 seemed unusually dull, with the only real exception being during spring 2020, which of course couldn't be enjoyed due to lockdown.

June 2016, thoroughly horrible, including the weather.

June 2012.

I could probably go back further but that'll do for now.

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

58 minutes ago, Weather Enthusiast91 said:

From what I can remember, it remained mostly dull up until the 20th of September which saw a huge change to more settled conditions for the remainder of the month.

As for the August, it was the worst (if not the worst) one in my lifetime.

Where I was in south Hampshire, September 2008 was pretty nice from the 13th until almost the end of the month. It was very dry, and generally sunny with a few cloudy days.

In a rare example of timing my holidays well, I arrived back in the UK on Saturday 13th to dry, sunny conditions with more of the same forecast - very much better weather than we'd had for weeks.

August 2008 was pretty grim but not as bad as 1985, 1986 or 1992.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Summer8906

[Summer8906]

12 hours ago, cheeky_monkey said:

2002 was pretty dull year from Memory. Much like 1980 i remember as being dull..but that could just be the summer 

April and May 1980 I remember being very sunny. The end of summer, starting August 21 or so, was also sunny but too late to save the summer. There was also a prolonged spell of unseasonably anticyclonic conditions from late October to early December, which I remember being sunny at times.

[Terminal Moraine]

January 1996 was in a league of its own for dullness and  fog in these  parts with an estimated 6 hrs of sunshine during the month ( Buxton recorded 4.1 hrs ) and 12 consecutive days with no sunshine at all from Dec 30th 1995 to January 10th 1996, the longest sunless spell since records began at this site in 1977. This was followed by 8 consecutive sunless days from the 17th-24th.

With regard to summer months June 2012 was exceptionally dull with 63.7 hrs of sunshine and  August 2008 wasn't much better with 81.6 hrs. 

At my previous station a few miles away there was a 16 day sunless spell in December 1968 and a 14 day spell in January 1970 but I didn't have a sunshine recorder in those days so don't know what the monthly totals were.

[reef]

January 1996 was the dullest month I've ever recorded too. We had just 15 hours that month and it came after only 38 hours in the December. March 1996 was also poor that year with just 46 hours. The January and March were two of only five months in 43 years with less 50% of average sunshine here.

December 2002 was another of the five with 21 hours.

More recently July and August 2020 were exceptionally dull with just 97 and 132 hours each. That's only 18 hours more than January and February 2022 combined.

Edited September 22, 2023 by reef

[Chesil View]

The legendary winter of 1947 was particularly dull.  With I think a record breaking run of sunless days at Kew. 

Also 22 days out of 28  in Feb 47 were sunless at Halesowen in the Midlands.

[Summer of 95]

December 2021 in recent years, a fortnight with virtually no sunshine.

Nov 2015 had sunshine on one of the first 12 days. The rest of the month and December weren't much better. 

July 2010 was appalling for a summer month- 86 hours, even more so as unlike many dull summer months (June 12, Aug 08, July 23) it wasn't particularly wet. Just really dull for some reason. 

Jan 1996 is famous, it was as dull here as everywhere else, less remembered is how dull March 1996 also was. That too had at least a fortnight with practically no sun (though there was some snow in the middle of the month), the sun appeared on the final weekend for the first time in what seemed like weeks.

 

[Terminal Moraine]

Yes, March 1996 was very dull. There were 20 sunless days here, the most on record in March, and it was also the foggiest March on record by a wide margin with 232 hours of fog recorded. Even more remarkable coming after the foggiest month of any on record in January.

[damianslaw]

Jan and Mar 96 receiving much mention. First 20 days of Jan brought a persistant moist cloud filled westerly/south westerly airstream. The last 10 days brought a freezing cloudy easterly with some snow.

March 96 was a persistent easterly month, a cold N Sea brought lots of cloud and some snow for some.

I suspect May 96 exceptionally easterly was also dull.

 

[baddie]

February 2013 was one in particular, as depsite it being average for sunshine. There two periods of lengthy dull spells : One between the 8th and 13th, and another between the 20th and 26th. It came before a dreadful March.

April 2018 was similar, as I remember it was a disgustingly dull first half, with no sunshine whatsoever between the 7th and 13th. After that heatwave in the 3rd week, there was no susnhine from the 27th to the end.

April 2014 had no sunshine at all in the first week, but improved from the 8th. The month was still slightly duller than average. The end of May 2014 was dreadfully dull too.

There was a period of relentless overcast weather starting on Christmas Day 2018 and lasting until 7th January 2019. I only recorded 2 hours of sunshine during that 14 day period.

 

[Thundery wintry showers]

Having grown up in Cleadon in South Tyneside, I can second the mentions of January and March 1996 - those were the two months that immediately sprung to my mind.  It was even duller in that area of the country than in the Hull area.  At Durham, January had just 7.6 hours of sunshine and March had just 29.3 hours.  At Tynemouth, January only had 5 hours of sunshine, 3 of them on the 28th.  In March, some locations had no sun at all from the 11th to 25th inclusive.

The dullness of March 1996 particularly stuck out because it lay in a run of sunny Marches from 1993 to 1997 inclusive (at Durham, all of them had at least 126 hours of sunshine). 

Surprisingly, May 1996 was a fairly sunny month in the Tyne and Wear/Durham area, because, rather like in December 2010, the north-easterly winds of May 1996 brought frequent clear, showery Arctic air masses into the north-east, but in the south-east, where the air masses were more modified, it was often dull.

December 2002 also stuck out for me as a very dull easterly month, though in most regions it wasn't quite as dull as January 1996.

[Harry's House]

Mid-April 1966 was exceptionally dull in the south. I was 12 years old living in Essex and I remember a period of snow for a time which lay during one afternoon (I should think 14th or 15th) because there was no April sun to thaw it. At Cardington sunshine was recorded on only one day during the period 11th to 20th April and it including a long period of snow on 14th and 15th - a thoroughly miserable spell of weather being cold and wet as well.

Early August 1968 was exceptionally dull in the South East at least because of low pressure over the near continent. 

I was working at Dunkeswell for a few years during the 1990's. I remember November 1994 was persistently dull with 26.8 hours of sunshine, but as already mentioned, January 1996 was also exceptionally dull with 19.8 hours, though not nearly as other places in the country. 

[LetItSnow!]

I don't exact stats but in NW Kent where I was living at the time, late March through mid-April in 2018 seemed exceptionally dull. We had a sunny day on what I think was the 21st then had very little sunshine until just before the heatwave. I remember April 5th being an isolated sunny day in what seemed to be endless gloom with cool days but mild nights with very little variation in temperature from day to night. This period also encompassed some washout weather. March 30th poured with rain all day with endless gloom and I remember Easter being dull but drier. What a contrast with the hot summer that followed.

[Sun Chaser]

Aug 2020: just 24 hours were recorded at my station from 14th-28th August. Similarly the entire second half of October 2020 only recorded 10 hours.

July 2023 being the obvious recent choice but the sunshine was at least evenly spread throughout the month, preventing any especially horrendous extended dull periods. Instead I'd choose 3rd-23rd March when just ONE day recorded more than 3 hours of sunshine!

Not to forget the final 9 days of June 2017 which recorded *TWO* hours of sunshine.