Best summer between 85/88

[Summerlover2006]

 

As most weather fans know 85 86 87 88 were a poor run of summers and I’ve definitely seen a forum on the worst summer between these years but what was the best? 
 

Reading through records it’s very debatable all summers having awful periods and fine to warm periods.

 

1985 actually had quite a few warm periods in July but June and august were just awful. 

 

1986 had quite a front loaded summer with some warm weather in June and in the first half of July but august just being terrible. 

 

1987 instead of having one fine month had lots of spaced out warmth with some warmth at the end of June and first half of July and in the middle of august but the spaces between these just being awful.

 

1988 is almost impossible to defend no warmth apart for the opening days of august although June was dry but July sounds like definition of awful.

 

in my opinion all 4 of these summers sound like my worst nightmare as a fan of hot summers but the best out of a bad bunch would probably be 1985.

what do u think?

[John S2]

Both 1986 & 1988 had a good June, but as someone who likes my summers dry, there is no contest here for summer as a whole. 1986 is easily the best because it was the driest of the four by a big margin in my region [NW England]. Rainfall figures for NW England for the summers are 1986 - 214mm, 85/87/88 - 324/336/330

1985 was vile and was even worse in Southern Scotland where 1985 had the 2nd wettest July & 2nd wettest August on record contributing to a massive 513mm for wettest summer on record [even worse than 2012]

[damianslaw]

I don't have the statistics, but I think 1986 was the best of a bad lot. I remember 1987 and especially 1988 school holiday periods being dire, just wet. 1985 also very poor. I'd rate 1985, 87 and 88 as bad as each other. 1985 came on the back of a poor spring as well. 1987 delivered an excellent April at least. 1988 came on the back of a lacklustre spring. In this context 1985 probably felt worse. 

Edited March 3 by damianslaw

[hillbilly]

Just had a look at the local met office stats and which would paint a dead heat between all of them but we all know stats dont paint a true picture.My memories of working on the farm are the same today as i remember with 1985 being the worst ,really struggled to make any hay and constantly had to get a second tractor to pull out the one that got stuck,shocking.The other three were similar overall with 1986 being cooler but i always thought 1988 was better than the others.

[danm]

I was born in 1986 so have no memory of this run of Summers. 

For London, the stats say this:

1985 - a poor June and August, a reasonable July with some warm to hot days. 

1986 - a decent June, mediocre July and a poor August. 

1987 - a poor June, a decent first half to July but a poor second half, August was mediocre but with a warm middle. 

1988 - poor June, poor July, poor August barring a few warm days. 

All were poor Summers, 1988 the worst of the lot. It’s hard to say which was the “best”. Possibly ‘85 or ‘86?

[cheeky_monkey]

probably 1986...it was a cold year in general...obviously a very cold February was then followed by a very cold and wet April..summer was garbage outside of June...1985 was another cold winter followed by a garbage summer ..outside of the disgustingly wet and cool July 1988 wasn't too bad..June was ok as was August in my neck of the woods...1987 i struggle with because i dont remember it being too bad but stats say otherwise!

[LetItSnow!]

July 1987 really looks like a month of two halves, suggested by Heathrow stats.

The first-half was by no means special for temperatures (the monthly max was only 28.3°C on the 6th but the month was rainless until the 13th. I don't have sunshine figures but I imagine it was pleasant under the anticyclone.

The second-half was completely different. Despite the first-half being bone dry at Heathrow it rained almost every day from the 15th onwards and recorded 78.2mm for the month as a whole. The maxima in the second half was positively Artic at times, mostly between the 17th and the 23rd when the usually warm London saw several days failing to exceed 15°C. The interesting thing about July 1987 is that it isn't an Atlantic dominated month at all. Apart from mid-month, most of the time it was pesky cut off lows delivering days of gloom with instability giving occaisonal thunderstorms. Luton saw only 25 hours of sunshine in the second half of the month. Temperatures recovered somewhat in the closing days but remained cool and showery from the west/northwest.

 

Interesting note about August 1987 is that most of the month's rainfall at Heathrow fell on two days (26.9mm on the 22nd and 15.5mm on the 25th) and that most of the month was quite dry outside of light, showery bits of rain. Interesting that Trevor Harley writes that August 1987 was extremely wet in East Anglia with amounts around 200% of the norm but in the southwest it was very dry, the driest since August 1981. I'm not surprised when looking at the reanalysis charts as it was a very northerly month which would disproportionately have affected these areas.

I have heard about the very strong heatwave that gripped Greece during July 1987 and I wonder if this was a prototype 2007/2012 summer with anomalous heat fuelling low pressure systems to barrel our way.

Edited March 4 by LetItSnow!

[A Face like Thunder]

 damianslaw fully agree, 1985 was the worst in my experience, with the other three summers coming not far ahead.  

[damianslaw]

 A Face like Thunder Only vague memories of 1985 summer, sadly the 4 summers mentioned coincided with prime outdoor childhood play time, 7-10 years old and I remember far too many rainy days in the summer holidays/weekends. Summer 89 made up for it. Summer 84 was very good here, very dry, parched brown grass on the local 'rec'.

[Weather-history]

These 4 summers encompassed all of my high school summer holidays.

1987 was bad. June was awful until those last couple or so days. It was the wettest month of the 1980s here, that’s how bad that June was. I posted this before but there was a day during the first week of August, it only got to 12C
 

1985 wasn’t great as well. That started off well. Remember how pleasantly warm and sunny the last day of May 1985 was but that went downhill. Period around the Live Aid concert was decent but August was bad until the last few days. 
 

1986 is an interesting summer, recall it being warm and sunny during the Mexico World Cup. August was chilly but a lot of the rain for that month fell during the last week.
 

1988 had the dire July but the June and August were not too bad at least compared with that July.

 

I think 1986 was the best out of the bunch probably more so because of the second half of June.