Why did summer 2023 feel worse than stats suggest?

[Addicks Fan 1981]

5 minutes ago, Froze were the Days said:

'Warm September' - I think that's an under statement it's been like a 4th summer month, okay July was poor but temperatures again weren't on the cold side...overall though going by my back yard experience it was a pretty average one, August not remarkable but okay (other than the opening days) and June surprisingly the warmest on record which it didn't feel here due no over excessive heat by day.

Very sensible post there which I support wholeheartedly.    Each year is going to be different and next year with the niño decline we should see a neutral summer with you would think of how it should behave more or less, followed by la niña into next year's autumn.     

[WYorksWeather]

Interesting thoughts from everyone. Agree that there is a limit to what the stats can tell you, particularly  temperature in isolation. In any case, I think it's a story of how odd this summer has been. One statistic I've just pulled out which is remarkable really considering how poor large parts of the core summer period were is that June to September actually has the highest mean temperature of the last 10 years! It'll probably fall back a bit with the last few days and finish either joint first or second.

[The PIT]

Well September is autumn although the way things are going perhaps we ought to start thinking of four summer months and two Autumn months.

I think if June was wet and August was June many would think it was a good summer. People tend to have short memories.

[Addicks Fan 1981]

1 hour ago, WYorksWeather said:

Interesting thoughts from everyone. Agree that there is a limit to what the stats can tell you, particularly  temperature in isolation. In any case, I think it's a story of how odd this summer has been. One statistic I've just pulled out which is remarkable really considering how poor large parts of the core summer period were is that June to September actually has the highest mean temperature of the last 10 years! It'll probably fall back a bit with the last few days and finish either joint first or second.

We've had el niño, the warm Atlantic, climate change and the SSW earlier on this year and all of this has resulted in a mixed bag of summer weather.   At the same time we also have had rising sunspot numbers so some or all of these things seem to have determined how our summer has behaved this year.   

[Bradley in Kent]

Drab Summers seem to be exasperated when there's no major sports competitions or national events I feel. 

September has just about made it up!

[WYorksWeather]

On 29/09/2023 at 18:29, The PIT said:

Well September is autumn although the way things are going perhaps we ought to start thinking of four summer months and two Autumn months.

I think if June was wet and August was June many would think it was a good summer. People tend to have short memories.

Statistically, you're absolutely right. The 1961-90 CET mean for June is 14.1C. The 1991-20 CET mean for September is 14.2C.

So on a temperature basis, September is now summer, or else June between 1961 and 1990 wasn't!

No other months yet on the seasonal boundaries quite cross over from a quick check, but February is getting closer all the time:

1961-90 CET mean for March: 5.7C

1991-20 CET mean for February: 5.0C

1994-23 CET mean for February: 5.2C

2014-23 CET mean for February: 5.7C

So currently, it'd be valid to say that we have an unofficial extra Summer month, and possibly by the time we get to the 2011-40 average, we'll be able to have an unofficial extra Spring month.

 

 

[damianslaw]

21 hours ago, WYorksWeather said:

Statistically, you're absolutely right. The 1961-90 CET mean for June is 14.1C. The 1991-20 CET mean for September is 14.2C.

So on a temperature basis, September is now summer, or else June between 1961 and 1990 wasn't!

No other months yet on the seasonal boundaries quite cross over from a quick check, but February is getting closer all the time:

1961-90 CET mean for March: 5.7C

1991-20 CET mean for February: 5.0C

1994-23 CET mean for February: 5.2C

2014-23 CET mean for February: 5.7C

So currently, it'd be valid to say that we have an unofficial extra Summer month, and possibly by the time we get to the 2011-40 average, we'll be able to have an unofficial extra Spring month.

 

 

Ive noticed over the last 10 years how businesses have cottoned on to the warming trend in Sept. Many late summer events throughout the month, even the local bus service has a summer timetable running through Sept, but not June. Sept is fast becoming late summer with only the loss of light a reminder we are long past the solstice. 

[Don]

21 hours ago, WYorksWeather said:

So currently, it'd be valid to say that we have an unofficial extra Summer month, and possibly by the time we get to the 2011-40 average, we'll be able to have an unofficial extra Spring month.

Very likely at this rate, yes.

[Beanz]

I don’t think this summer has been that bad at all quite honestly, we’ve had plenty of warm weather and enough rain to keep things alive.  

Stats definitely have a place, but aren’t a reflection of reality and quite often don’t paint a very different picture.  Reminds me of the phrase: ‘Football is played on grass, not on paper’ 

[Arctic Hare]

We've had a very strange four months temperature-wise, with the CET for both June and September higher than that for either July or August. (When did that last happen?) As such, it depends a lot on what you count as "summer".

July was a pretty dismal month for "high summer", considerably worse than the overall CET figure would suggest since mild, cloudy nights are far less important to most people compared with cool, overcast drizzly days. August started bad and improved later, but as danm mentioned earlier that means the school holiday period was plain poor for a lot of people.

I don't like 2022-style extreme heat, but the persistent cloud and gloom and cool in July especially went too far the other way. It just didn't feel like the middle of summer at all.

[alexisj9]

12 minutes ago, Arctic Hare said:

We've had a very strange four months temperature-wise, with the CET for both June and September higher than that for either July or August. (When did that last happen?) As such, it depends a lot on what you count as "summer".

July was a pretty dismal month for "high summer", considerably worse than the overall CET figure would suggest since mild, cloudy nights are far less important to most people compared with cool, overcast drizzly days. August started bad and improved later, but as danm mentioned earlier that means the school holiday period was plain poor for a lot of people.

I don't like 2022-style extreme heat, but the persistent cloud and gloom and cool in July especially went too far the other way. It just didn't feel like the middle of summer at all.

See that where I can't agree, as it was cloudy, sometimes slightly wet, but it was also warm, you don't normally get warm wet/cloudy days outside of summer, where it's too hot to wear a jacket even though it's raining.

[Methuselah]

13 minutes ago, alexisj9 said:

See that where I can't agree, as it was cloudy, sometimes slightly wet, but it was also warm, you don't normally get warm wet/cloudy days outside of summer, where it's too hot to wear a jacket even though it's raining.

I don't think I've worn a jacket since last March. 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

53 minutes ago, alexisj9 said:

See that where I can't agree, as it was cloudy, sometimes slightly wet, but it was also warm, you don't normally get warm wet/cloudy days outside of summer, where it's too hot to wear a jacket even though it's raining.

This takes us a to a Sun V Warmth debate. Some will have found it better as it was warm. Where as some will have rated it badder - lol - due to the lack of sun. For me it's all about sun ...

[Methuselah]

Ah, isn't that the crux of it, Beka? 

What one person perceives as cold another feels as warm; so, it's all about feelings and nothing to do with El Nino, QBO or the MJO?  

[*Stormforce~beka*]

3 minutes ago, Methuselah said:

Ah, isn't that the crux of it, Beka? 

What one person perceives as cold another feels as warm; so, it's all about feelings and nothing to do with El Nino, QBO or the MJO?  

As is everything in life nothing is straight cut. It's mixed. So a lot of variables involed. Like any outcome of weather as all know when trying to get storms or snow!!

[damianslaw]

For the Lake District it was a poor summer, and we've had some poor ones in the past! 

[Addicks Fan 1981]

9 hours ago, Methuselah said:

Ah, isn't that the crux of it, Beka? 

What one person perceives as cold another feels as warm; so, it's all about feelings and nothing to do with El Nino, QBO or the MJO?  

Think the el niño forced the jet stream in the wrong position this summer just gone especially in July and the first 10 days of August, it was more pleasant in the last 20 days of August though.   My neck of the woods didn't fare too badly.    

[alexisj9]

11 hours ago, Methuselah said:

I don't think I've worn a jacket since last March. 

Here since June, apart from during some rain in September, think I posted about it in the autumn thread. Been to hot apart from then. Was nice for it to be cold and wet for a change. Worst thing is warm and wet.

[al78]

Summer 2023 felt worse than the stats suggest because monthly or seasonal stats completely smooths out temporal and spatial variation. If a summer month has 30 days of bone dry sunny weather and one day where a slow moving MCS drops six inches of rain, is that a wet month? The monthly stats would say yes but human perception and usability of the weather for enjoyable outdoor activities would say no.

Down here in Sussex this year for me has mostly been a write off, and I say this from the perspective of someone who's hobbies largely consist of outdoor activities. When my allotment is wrecked by rampant perennial weed infestation and huge mollusc outbreaks from the persistent wet weather in July, because I made the stupid decision to go on holiday a couple of times, when I cannot work on my allotment properly in spring or most of summer because the year's weather has consisted of random wet and dry seasons, meaning the ground is either a claggy mess (March and July) or baked solid (late May-June), when I have a weekday job and I look forward to getting out on the weekend only to find it is a rain-fest AGAIN, when I have to dress like I am hiking up in the Cairngorms just so I can cycle to town or the station without getting soaked, when I visit family and hope to get out in the big hills of the Lakes or Snowdonia but it ends up being five days of unsettled weather and clag, I feel the summer and the year in general has been lousy.

Trying to claim the summer has been fine because of CET stats is like saying no-one living in the UK has any business complaining about anything in the UK because the country ranks highly in global stats in terms of quality of life indices. It comes close to gaslighting.

[WYorksWeather]

30 minutes ago, al78 said:

Summer 2023 felt worse than the stats suggest because monthly or seasonal stats completely smooths out temporal and spatial variation. If a summer month has 30 days of bone dry sunny weather and one day where a slow moving MCS drops six inches of rain, is that a wet month? The monthly stats would say yes but human perception and usability of the weather for enjoyable outdoor activities would say no.

Down here in Sussex this year for me has mostly been a write off, and I say this from the perspective of someone who's hobbies largely consist of outdoor activities. When my allotment is wrecked by rampant perennial weed infestation and huge mollusc outbreaks from the persistent wet weather in July, because I made the stupid decision to go on holiday a couple of times, when I cannot work on my allotment properly in spring or most of summer because the year's weather has consisted of random wet and dry seasons, meaning the ground is either a claggy mess (March and July) or baked solid (late May-June), when I have a weekday job and I look forward to getting out on the weekend only to find it is a rain-fest AGAIN, when I have to dress like I am hiking up in the Cairngorms just so I can cycle to town or the station without getting soaked, when I visit family and hope to get out in the big hills of the Lakes or Snowdonia but it ends up being five days of unsettled weather and clag, I feel the summer and the year in general has been lousy.

Trying to claim the summer has been fine because of CET stats is like saying no-one living in the UK has any business complaining about anything in the UK because the country ranks highly in global stats in terms of quality of life indices. It comes close to gaslighting.

Another good point. To be clear (not sure if I gave this impression or not) - I'm not at all implying that the summer has been fine. I think it depends on how you look at it.

From a stats point of view, I think one of the ways to incorporate this sort of thing would be to create some sort of 'usable days' index - where rather than creating monthly averages, you set some criteria. Obviously you'd need to decide on cut offs, but off the top of my head you could do something like number of days that meet some combination of temperature, sunlight and rainfall. To pick random thresholds - the number of days that have max temperature over 21C, and sunlight more than 50% of the theoretical max, and rainfall less than 0.5mm, for example.

Of course, inevitably weather is experienced by people in different ways, so it is true of course that even if you agree on a preference for warm, dry and sunny days in summer, you still can't capture every nuance statistically. Someone who booked a couple of weeks off work in June would have a very different view of this summer to someone who did the same in July, and to some extent August.

[Methuselah]

12 hours ago, Addicks Fan 1981 said:

Think the el niño forced the jet stream in the wrong position this summer just gone especially in July and the first 10 days of August, it was more pleasant in the last 20 days of August though.   My neck of the woods didn't fare too badly.    

If that's the case (I don't know either way!) it'd affect the stats, not just the 'feel'? 

[Addicks Fan 1981]

On 03/10/2023 at 08:30, Beanz said:

I don’t think this summer has been that bad at all quite honestly, we’ve had plenty of warm weather and enough rain to keep things alive.  

Stats definitely have a place, but aren’t a reflection of reality and quite often don’t paint a very different picture.  Reminds me of the phrase: ‘Football is played on grass, not on paper’ 

Mushy described this summer as average which is a fact, he also stated that summer wasn't all about daytime.  His posts are very reasoned and make sense.   

[Beanz]

5 minutes ago, Addicks Fan 1981 said:

Mushy described this summer as average which is a fact, he also stated that summer wasn't all about daytime.  His posts are very reasoned and make sense.   

I think average is probably right, not questioning the stats, but from a ‘feels like’ factor, it felt average…in a good way

 

 

Edited October 6, 2023 by Beanz

[Addicks Fan 1981]

1 minute ago, Beanz said:

I think average is probably right, not questioning the stats, but from a ‘feels like’ factor, it felt average…in a good way

 

 

Always a great idea to post things with statistical support as that way you are respected on the site and personally it's also a good idea to not post unsubstantiated claims.    

[Beanz]

3 minutes ago, Addicks Fan 1981 said:

Always a great idea to post things with statistical support as that way you are respected on the site and personally it's also a good idea to not post unsubstantiated claims.    

I’m pretty sure I’ve said the same myself many times in recent posts - you’re preaching to the converted