Worryingly Wet & Worryingly Sunless

[stainesbloke]

 CryoraptorA303 ooh, good news that the warmer months are getting sunnier Still hundreds of hours away from where I’d like the figures to be, but any improvement on our generally woeful sunshine hours is welcome. 
I’ve been interested in the weather for about 42 years now and London winters have always been predominantly wet and gloomy, but at least they used to have a variety of weather types and temperatures, including an occasional snowfall. It’s certainly changed into something much more dreary and depressing, unfortunately. Perma-autumn is quite apt

[BlueSkies_do_I_see]

I might have to change my name to don't_I_see if this dullness carries on!

[reef]

 CryoraptorA303 This is not actually the case. Here are the winter average sunshine values here:

1951-80: 161 hours
1961-90: 165 hours
1971-00: 172 hours
1981-10: 189 hours
1991-20: 207 hours
1995-24: 214 hours (latest 30 year period)

This year was slightly below average (191 hours), but not a patch on previous winters like 1992-93 and 1995-96 (both just 137 hours). Its crazy to think this winter would have been "sunny" compared to average 40 years ago. 

 

[CryoraptorA303]

 reef Interesting! Could these lower sunshine hours in the past have been down to a higher incidence of inversion layers? It may have also been due to more high, light cloud vs today where we have more storms passing through over the winter months leading to more odd sunny days in the aftermath in overall very dull periods. It could also just be the result of the expanding Hadley cell which is obviously going to bring more sunshine hours along with the high humidity and autumnal nonsense we had this winter, and keep having almost every year now.

There is probably also some natural variation involved with the repeated wet autumnwinters we keep having. Eventually we will see a very dry period again, and one that lasts multiple years. We are very overdue a notably dry Autumn now, it will happen again eventually.

[al78]

The north/south rainfall bias continues. March to date has seen above average rainfall relative to the whole month across SE England, whereas in parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland it has been much drier than normal so far.

Edited March 14 by al78

[In Absence of True Seasons]

What on earth is this strange phenomenon that's just appeared? A peculiar blueness has manifested in the sky.

Jokes aside, the sun actually hurt my eyes and head for a good couple minutes when I left the house My body has become so accustomed to not seeing light and sun lmao. 

[*Stormforce~beka*]

 In Absence of True Seasons I was like that earlier. It did hurt me too. Although don't worry it doesn't last long. An hour if your lucky. Mine has gone ...

[sunny_vale]

 *Stormforce~beka* Thank you! Hugs to you too, we all need it at the mo I feel  although today was pretty nice until the evening. 

It's not cold which is definitely one thing, and there are signs of it becoming drier, brighter and calmer next week. We shall see!

[Metwatch]

Got this table (might be of interest to you @Weather-history ) which shows the wettest EWP periods from 1 to 36 month periods, and it turns out the last 16, 17 and 18 months have been the wettest such periods on record! The last 19 months have been the third wettest in the EWP series.

EWP wettest periods.csv

Edited March 14 by Metwatch

[WYorksWeather]

 Wade That is true, but only in an 'if all else is the same' sense. The suggestion for the future evolution is that weather patterns will slowly shift poleward due to Hadley Cell expansion. In an extreme scenario, this would lead to the UK and much of Western Europe taking on a Mediterranean climate, with mild and wet winters, and hot and dry summers. Meanwhile, southern Europe would be closer to the current climate of North or central Africa - very hot and dry year round, with possible desertification.

The problem is that the process is very slow, and so estimates for the speed of the Hadley Cell expansion vary widely. There is reasonable confidence that it is happening, but the difference between say 0.2 degrees of latitude per decade vs. 1.0 degrees per decade is huge, and we don't have enough data to be sure.

[CryoraptorA303]

 Metwatch Funny you mention that, I was about to say that this must be breaking records by now.

If things don't improve soon and the rest of spring is wet like this, let alone summer, it's going to be an absolute disaster for agriculture and the like. Surely it can't continue for much longer though, it has to eventually give up.

These are not the records I thought would be broken c. 12 months ago.

[MP-R]

 stainesbloke There hasn’t really been much change in summer, but spring has become sunnier over the last 20-25 years, and actually so have winters (this year not included). What’s noticeable in winter however is the sunshine distribution… often all or nothing!

[WYorksWeather]

I don't think the pattern will persist. We keep seeing attempts at activity from the Azores high, and sooner or later I think the first of many heat spikes will hit. For the overall warm season from May to September, I think temperatures will be well above average overall, and rainfall at least tending towards dry (I'm not saying it will be consistently dry though). I'll bet on something moderately dry like say 70% of average 1991-2020 rainfall for May to September.

If we have an above average May to September for rainfall feel free to come back and quote me on it of course. 

[Wade]

Summers since 2001 actually have been slightly wetter than usual on the basis of the "met office anomaly maps" 13 have been wet and 10 dry so that should tell us something. 

[CryoraptorA303]

 Wade This is to be expected. Average or wet summers will be wetter and dry summers will be less dry than they used to be, for now anyway, but the higher temperatures means groundwater will be lower than in the past with the same rainfall.

In the future it is expected that our summers will reverse trend and start becoming drier again as Hadley cell expansion causes the subtropical ridge to increasingly dominate our climate. Winters will keep getting wetter, stormer and milder, eventually transitioning to the Iberian model of having near-constant low-mid teens from November to March. This winter was a snapshot of what the average winter may look like in c. 2050.

[John S2]

Hadley cell expansion, in isolation, would lead to drier summers particularly in the South - but there is more going on. There is a theory that Arctic Amplification - the fact that the Arctic is warming at a faster rate than the rest of the world - acts to send the jet stream further South. This is a battle between two conflicting influences.

Since 2007 there has been an increased frequency in summers with negative NAO, indeed all 18 months in the awful cluster of summers 2007-2012 had negative NAO. It should be mentioned, however, that there are some good summer months with negative NAO so it is only part of the picture.

[LetItSnow!]

Of course it is possible rainfall projections may not end up changing an excessive amount at all but just perhaps hiding a larger gap. As long as the Atlantic remains at play I see winters remaining wet and getting wetter with more moisture in the atmosphere, more instability and therefor more rain. Summers are trickier. If the Hadley cell continues to grow then you’d expect the summers to become drier, but this is assuming the summers of the future are high pressure dominated. Again, if not, with the Atlantic at play, more warmth and more instability will probably produce a higher likely of severe thunderstorms and torrential rain. It’s interesting to see the graph of our summers becoming drier in the second half of the 20th century when there were quite a lot of cool summers. A cooler planet will probably be dryer. Again, the summer rainfall of the future is the most uncertain part but I think we will probably continue to see an increase/steadying of the excessive rainfall we’ve seen in our winters and autumns, probably spring being the driest season as the “bottled up” synoptics have the best chance of blocking highs, then the summers will either become more high pressure dominated or our usual changeable summers will have more of a tendency for extreme rainfall. 

Overall I’m not convinced on us getting drier as we’ve seen no proof of that IMO for the past 11 years. It’s also interesting to read historic accounts of colder periods in history and the droughts that came along with them. 

[Buzz]

While I too am absolutely hating the almost endless wet and miserable weather I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the next few months we enter a prolonged dry spell which will inevitably lead to hosepipe bans and people desiring more rain.

Of course given our climate we shouldn't have to endure water supply issues but due to the way that our water system is being run by foreign owners this shouldn't be a surprise (about 70% of the English water industry is under foreign ownership, private equity, businesses in tax havens, pension funds, etc). Necessary investments in infrastructure just aren't taking place on a scale that is needed, and that applies to building new reservoirs too (which in itself is a problem due to the amount of land that a reservoir takes up).

Edited March 15 by Buzz

[TonyH]

 Wade Comparing my stations past 18 year averages with historical local averages, only Winters are wetter and substantially so, the other seasons being similar.

[ANYWEATHER]

30 minutes ago, Buzz said:

Necessary investments in infrastructure just aren't taking place on a scale that is needed, and that applies to building new reservoirs too (which in itself is a problem due to the amount of land that a reservoir takes up).

Indeed. But reservoirs will ultimately make great wild life havens and recreational places for people to visit and enjoy. As you said , sadly at the moment not nearly enough investment.

[Summer8906]

 MP-R Indeed. Constant dull, damp, sunless southwesterlies does not make it spring-like. It just makes it autumnal.

 

[Summer8906]

What's particularly concerning about the current spell is a combination of dullness, wetness and extreme mildness, going on for weeks and weeks.

The endless southwesterlies persisting with only the briefest of breaks.

This threatens to have a very bad effect on our enjoyment of spring. The flowering has come very early due to the extreme mildness, but the extremely dull, wet and unsettled weather means you can't enjoy it.

Result is that 2024 will probably be the most spartan, aesthetically-bereft spring for perhaps 40 years or more, whatever the weather does in April and May. No other year has had such a combination of overly-forward nature and dull, wet weather by this stage of the year. A potent and quite prolonged cold spell (but please, dry - thinking April 2021) is what we need to save it.

But instead we have yet more horrible mild southwesterlies next week. Not quite as wet, but very damaging for nature.

Then we have summer and autumn. Summer has a 75% chance of being distinctly meh, based on the past few years (but with above-average CET due to very mild nights and the odd short heatwave). And autumn a similar chance of being dull, wet, mild and humid.

So I'm seriously downbeat about the rest of 2024, such has been the effect of this persistent spell of extreme mildness and extreme dull/wet weather. A spartan spring, a likely cloudy, changeable summer and a likely mild and unsettled autumn, based on the norms for the past few years. I do hope I am wrong!

To be honest I'd actually prefer a return to 2007-12. The summers were no worse than now, and the winters better!

 

Edited March 15 by Summer8906

[LetItSnow!]

 Summer8906 I actually agree. The law of averages does suggest a spell of cooler/blocked years even if they may not be as potent as they once were. Cards have to fall in place but it can happen. At least those summers didn’t have oppressive heat spikes and they mostly had a real semblance of winter. Our big coldwave like NA had in January 2024 or February 2021 will come eventually. 

[Summer8906]

 LetItSnow! It's telling that two of the coolest post-1988 years, 1996 and 2010, are amongst my favourite calendar years of late.

Some of the genuinely cool summer months are in some ways less unpleasant than some of these contemporary cloudy damp summer months with high CET - even though I prefer warm, sunny summers.

Thinking of something  like August 2014. Genuinely cool, and while a fairly poor month, not the worst summer month we've had of late.

Also Summer 2011. Persistently changeable with no prolonged settled spells, so not a good summer - but actually more bearable than some recent summers incredibly perhaps due to cooler but cleaner air leading to cooler CET, cooler nights, but days perhaps no cooler than much of summer 2021 or 2023.

Basically Anything But Southwesterly is my preference!

Edited March 15 by Summer8906

[*Stormforce~beka*]

 Summer8906 We need to move house ...