Back in June, I was wondering whether or not, we would even have much of a summer this year given how cold and unsettled it was at that time. Since then though, we had hottest day on record here in Edinburgh during July. As far as the temperatures are concerned, June was no better than average here overall and given how poor that month was for much of the time, we were very lucky to even get away with an average month on that front. However, July and August have both been warmer than average, and the summer as a whole has been warmer than average in this part of the world as a result.
Not only did we get away with an average month in June as far as the temperatures are concerned, but we even managed to somehow, get away with a sunnier than average month back then as well after it had looked almost certain at one point in time, as though that month was going to be duller than average.However, July did end up being duller than average overall here. For most of this month, it has also looked as though this month was going to duller than average. However, the recent spell of good weather which we have just had means that sunshine totals now look like coming out at around average at Edinburgh Gogarbank whereas this has been a sunnier than average month overall at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh. When you balance that out, this month actually comes out as being slightly sunnier than average overall here in Edinburgh.
As far as this summer is concerned, this summer has actually been sunnier than average at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh, but is likely to go down as being duller than average at Edinburgh Gogarbank. Balancing all of that out, we can say that the sunshine totals here in Edinburgh have actually been around average overall.
What has let this summer down badly though has been the amounts of rain which we have been getting. Every single month during this summer has been substantially wetter than average here in Edinburgh with that being the case with this summer as a whole. During this month alone, we have had more than twice the August average rainfall here in Edinburgh overall. This means that two out of the last three summers (including this one) have been wetter than average here in Edinburgh with every single month during those summers being wetter than average. However, the latter part of this month has not been anywhere near as wet as the earlier part of it.
This also happened in August 2017 (although that month wasn't anywhere near as wet overall as this month) and back then, we then ended up going into a dry autumn followed by a dry winter. That particular winter was our coldest winter since the winter of 2012/13 and ended with those Beast from the East events which went on into the early part of that following spring. At the moment, the outlook is rather unsettled on the latest model output which I have seen but then, someone on the MO thread has mentioned that the ECM has started to take on a more settled note. That then makes what I have just said above about the period from August 2017 until the spring of 2018 very interesting indeed because could it be that we might end up with a repeat of all of that this time?
In any case though, there are three main pointers for how I determine whether or not, any particular summer has been a decent one. In my books, the best possible summer is one where it is warmer, sunnier and drier than average. On that note, this summer passed the temperature test quite well, but has failed miserably on the rainfall part of that. With sunshine totals during this summer coming out at around average, that is a neutral factor when it comes to determining whether or not, it has been a decent summer overall. Bringing all of these together, this actually comes out as a draw which means that this summer has been neither decent nor poor overall, and has basically just been an average summer overall (albeit one with a lot of extreme swings within it). This means that if I was mark this summer out of ten right now, I would currently give it around 5/10.
The north of Edinburgh, usually always missing out on snow events which occur not just within the rest of Scotland or the UK, but also within the rest of Edinburgh.