Moans, ramps and banter

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 Frigid Issue is too, it comes off the back of prolonged dullness and wetness as a dominant theme. Winter was incredibly dull and wet, as was last Autumn (aside from the heatwave in Sept and the few days in Oct). Before that? Virtually all of high summer bar a few days at the end of August. 

This Spring wouldn't have been such a downer if it was preceded by a lovely sunny, crisp, snowy winter, and a comparable Autumn prior to that. Instead, we've had 9-10 months where nearly every single day has been a variation of 10-14c, overcast and some degree of rain.

Genuinely has felt like living in a different climate for much of the last 12-18 months, to me, and it shows no signs of abating. Really impressive, for all the wrong reasons. 

[B87]

 Markus03 I wish we had 15c and sun.

Nothing but cool, wet and cloudy for the forseeable future.

 In Absence of True Seasons It has felt like being in a warmer version of Glasgow or Bergen. Constant rain and rarely seeing the sun.

[Markus03]

I feel bad for you. In the UK you expect wet all the time. There are rare occasions where you're like "Finally, there will be dry weather for a week".

[CryoraptorA303]

 B87 Indeed, in that time we had 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, vs 2018 being the most mixed bag on the planet and 2014, 2016, 2023 being the only ones that can be described as at least a bit poor. Quite the surplus of sunny and/or warm Aprils, looks like the 2020s are hitting us with the overdue poor ones all at once. I won't mind too much if it means we also get the sunny, drier autumns we're very overdue in turn.

Edited April 25 by CryoraptorA303

[B87]

 Markus03 We don't expect wet all the time. That is why the last 11 months have been so terrible.

[Markus03]

 B87 What I meant, it's actually wet over there. Maybe there will only be a total of a month a year when days in one year are actually dry.

[CryoraptorA303]

 Markus03  B87 Yeah, it's a bit of a stereotype taken to America by northern English and Scottish migrants. East Anglia has among the driest Cfb climate in the world.

Edited April 25 by CryoraptorA303
Cfb, not Cfa. My bad.

[B87]

 Markus03 London averages about 110 wet days per year. That isn't one dry month out of a year.

[B87]

 CryoraptorA303 We are overdue a sunny July and August and a bone dry and sunny October/November, and maybe one of the sunniest Decembers on record with how many extremely dull ones we have had recently.

3 of the 4 dullest Decembers have occurred since 2010. 4 of the 5 dullest Augusts since 2008.

Edited April 25 by B87

[*Stormforce~beka*]

 stainesbloke Yes!!!!! 15c minimum 

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 B87

Lack of sun has been super noticeable. This sort of daily, blanket greyness is quite overwhelming for this time of year. Especially in the SE / London. It's definitely not some something I associate with Spring. I'd expect it in the depths of December or whatnot but not nearly May. 

I think the stats are being bumped up by sun hours occuring in the mornings and evenings/nights which is the least beneficial time for those hours and doesn't make the day really "feel" sunny

[CryoraptorA303]

 In Absence of True Seasons It's worse because the last two months have been like it as well. Dull Aprils happen but it's not so often we get a hat trick like this, along with December being abysmal too.

[CryoraptorA303]

20 minutes ago, B87 said:

4 of the 5 dullest Augusts since 2008.

August is the one that pops out to me, we're now ten consecutive years in without an August annual max, which is the longest run since at least 1875. In that time we've had two September annual maxes. The last shortest was about seven years so we're definitely due a few August-centric summers.

It seems like we're missing heat in June as well, last year was the first notably hot June since 2018, and before that 2003 if I recall. 2017 had the heatwave but overall it didn't end up overwhelmingly hot. We have been getting sunny Junes in that time, they're just not turning the thermometer up much.

Edited April 25 by CryoraptorA303

[danm]

51 minutes ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

There is no "usually" about it, there have been plenty of times when we've had these conditions in late April and colder. April is a chaotic month with no "should be", it can be below freezing overnight and snowing or 29°C at this time of year, and anything inbetween.

I agree, there is no "should be". An average is an average, sometimes colder, sometimes warmer. The problem isn't so much the temperatures - we've had cold spells in April before - it's the persistence of the duller and wetter than average weather that's the main problem. We just can't seem to get a stretch of dry and sunny weather at the moment. I accept that in late Autumn and winter, it's what the weather is like at that time of year, but by now you'd hope we would get something more consistently dry and sunny. The SSW definitely put a wrench in things and hasn't helped. I dreaded the talk at the end of Feb of an imminent SSW, knowing this would be the exact result of it. Not snowy mid March nirvana as many on the Mod thread were hoping for, but a perpetuating northern blocking pattern, shunting troughs into the mid latitudes giving us dull and damp weather. 

Edited April 25 by danm

[ChannelThunder]

 Alderc 2.0 Nothing surprises me at the moment. All I recall seeing for weeks now is model runs that do everything they can to end up with a northerly! 

[CryoraptorA303]

 danm Indeed, it really is the worst of both worlds. Abysmal December, apocalyptic February and then a late SSW to start the cycle all over again. Considering the deep SSW happened in early March and assuming it has an active window of around six weeks before the effects gradually decline, it'll likely take until mid-May at the earliest to shake it off now.

Super Ninos have a habit of doing this, having a strong PV over the winter so we get mild, wet rubbish, and then have a deep SSW in March so the spring is suppressed. Sky high SSTs have conspired with this to ensure such a progression remains very wet and dull throughout. Temps have only remained at where they are due to aforementioned sky high global temps and the occasional breakthrough front that gives us a few decent days before normal programming resumes.

The cough silver lining of this though is by the time this is over the Atlantic would've had over half a consecutive year of high cyclonic activity and there is now a noticeable cold blob in the west Atlantic, so once the affects of the SSW start wearing off, those highs should begin to reach us quite eagerly, so there is at least a plausible hope that the second half of the year might be notably dry, sunny and probably very warm to hot.

[Daniel*]

Fallen here to 7,5C here in central ish London with cold light rain this is really quite dire. Heating on.

Edited April 25 by Daniel*

[danm]

3 minutes ago, CryoraptorA303 said:

The cough silver lining of this though is by the time this is over the Atlantic would've had over half a consecutive year of high cyclonic activity and there is now a noticeable cold blob in the west Atlantic, so once the affects of the SSW start wearing off, those highs should begin to reach us quite eagerly, so there is at least a plausible hope that the second half of the year might be notably dry, sunny and probably very warm to hot.

Let's hope so. 

[B87]

 CryoraptorA303 The most noticeable thing of all is that in the Heathrow record, there have been 12 Septembers sunnier than the preceeding August. No big deal, until you look at the years in question.

1958, 1968, 1971, 1979, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2018, 2020, 2021.

What did happen once a decade on average is now happening almost half of the time since 2006.

Edited April 25 by B87

[CryoraptorA303]

3 minutes ago, B87 said:

2006

 

3 minutes ago, B87 said:

2021

These two are just funny to me. Both times the August and September could have plausibly been switched. Nature was really trolling the schoolchildren in these two years

In all seriousness, the growing summer-ness of September and the recent decline of August is noticeable in the long-term climatology. September's overall rainfall has declined quite a lot since 61-90 in the SE, while August's has increased a little.

Edited April 25 by CryoraptorA303

[B87]

 CryoraptorA303 September is now the month with the fewest wet days on average, though not the driest in total amount. More late summer thunderstorms and occasional hurricane remnants probably causing the increase in heavier rainfall on fewer days.

I think we will also see a 20c October in the next 2 decades. Current warmest Octobers by av max:

1995: 18.3c

2022: 18.3c

1969: 18.2c

2011: 18.1c

2023: 18.1c

1959: 17.8c

2005: 17.8c

2006: 17.8c

 

Edited April 25 by B87

[SunSean]

Since our old friend, the late season SSW, has annihilated our Spring yet again, give me your best & most suitable attempts on what it really abbreviates to! I'll get started-

Sudden Spring Wrecker

Satanic Sodden Weather

Soul Sucking Wretch (If SSW was an entity)

Sunshine Suppressed Wasteland 

Sabotaging Spring Wickedly

[CryoraptorA303]

 B87 I remember being quite shocked at how relatively low September's average rainfall and it's sunshine was, until I actually thought about the last few years and realised how many of them could have plausibly been Augusts.

It makes sense as well with the subtropical ridge's growing influence on our climate, as it's at its northernmost extent in early September, so it likely prevents a lot of showery weather and only lets in the occasional strong storm fuelled by the highest oceanic temps of the year. You can often see the influence of the subtropical ridge in August and September over Kent, and to a lesser extent the SE, it's often drier than the surrounding region no matter what. I refer to this as being "Kented"

The Met Office has stated that summer-type synoptics in Autumn are likely to become more common over the century due to climate change:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/weather/learn-about/uk-past-events/interesting/2023/2023_05_september_heatwave.pdf

"As our climate continues to change, it will tend to further increase the likelihood, duration and intensity of heatwave events experienced across the UK. Met Office research[1] has also shown that climate change is expected to increase the frequency of summer-type weather regimes during the Autumn in the UK."

This will presumably increase the number of September annual maxima (which are considerably more common in some Csb climates like northern Spain than here) and the severity of heatwaves in September and October in general.

Makes you wonder if in the near future we could see a September so hot that it ends up as one of the ten hottest months ever recorded.

[TonyH]

 midlandsun My parents are in the Midlands.

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 CryoraptorA303 indeed. In my childhood, which was the 90s and very early 00s, August was always the "king" summer month. The month where things were generally warmest, sunniest and driers. 

We used to go on a family trip every August to Devon, and in my mind's eye it was generally sunny and warm most years, enough so for me as a child to swim in the sea, my parents would lounge about on the beach etc, sometimes my dad would get the kayak out and I'd sit in the back. 

There's plenty of photos I've seen of those holidays too and most of the photos show sunny weather, everything very vibrant. 

If I had been a child in the 2010s to now, that decade of summer holidays in August would show a very different picture.

July tends to be the "king" summer month nowadays, August a disappointment, and then a final blast arriving in Sept.

Edited April 25 by In Absence of True Seasons