I'm in central France, where it's hot and until today the grass in the fields was brown. But even here isn't immune from the slow deterioration of summer 2017. 70mm of rain forecast here over the next week. We just had 9 of them in about half an hour, the grass is sodden and I can hear rumbles of thunder upwind ready for tonight's repeat performance.

By the end of August maybe even Italy's historic drought might fall foul to the slow Southward creep of the gunk.

Could this be like ghostbusters, a dark roiling cloud spreading inexorably Southwards until even the Sahara is under its pall? Certainly feels that way.

 I think they will be glad of the rain where they are suffering drought and forest fires. Cant see much attraction in brown grass and a pall of smoke from forest fires.

 

 I think they will be glad of the rain where they are suffering drought and forest fires. Cant see much attraction in brown grass and a pall of smoke from forest fires.

Then it'd suit all concerned if we could have a weather-swap for a month, with the UK getting Southern Europe's hot, dry & sunny weather; and Southern Europe getting our depressingly cool, cloudy & damp crapfest.

Me and the missus were talking about August 2003 Yesterday. She was 6 months pregnant with our first and her blood pressure was up and down so she was basically off work sick seemingly every other week. That one week when the 100f record went, I took 3 days off, and took her out for drives to Wales/Anglesey. We were sat on the beach about 3 miles south of RAF Valley when it recorded its highest ever temp. What I wouldn't give for another August like that one!

This might well be the start of a new month but sadly, we still have the same old weather which we have had all too often during this hellhole of a 'summer' as it is raining yet again here in Edinburgh as I write. Over the last few days or so, we have been in what has generally been a showery air stream and in that sort of air stream, you would normally expect each morning to least, start off on a bright and sunny note. It is then only once we have gone further into the morning that those familiar convective towering cumulus clouds would start to be seen due to that heating from the Sun and the instability of that air mass, which would then develop into those familar shower clouds later on.

However, I can't even remember the last time that we actually had a bright and sunny start to the day, which seems to have been very rare this summer in this part of the world. We might have got a bit of sunshine at some point during each day, but we haven't exactly had an awful lot of it as we contintinue to remain very firmly in our usual permacast. On top of that, this summer has already brought us our wettest June on record and although July wasn't as wet as June, that was still yet another wetter than average summer month.That leaves this month which we have just gone into, as our last chance (technically at least) for us to get a decent summer month this year (the fact that we already know that this will go down as a poor summer, mostly because of what happened in June, doesn't mean that we can't still have a decent summer month within that).

However, this month is also starting off on a fairly wet note here in Edinburgh and if the models are right, this month seems likely to be wetter than average as well. If that happens, it will mean that every single summer month during this year will have been wetter than average which will then really sum up just how miserable, this so-called 'summer' has been. Furthermore, it is Sod's Law as well, that this has happened after that long run of drier than average months which stretched back all the way towards the beginning of last year in this part of the world (it wasn't all that long ago for example, since we had our driest April on record), thus leading to concerns at one point in time that there might be water shortages and hosepipe bans during this summer (especially in the south of England) as a result of that drought, but that is all a very distant memory now.

 dull dreary and drizzly here. Not a great summer so far.

 

 

Then it'd suit all concerned if we could have a weather-swap for a month, with the UK getting Southern Europe's hot, dry & sunny weather; and Southern Europe getting our depressingly cool, cloudy & damp crapfest.

Me and the missus were talking about August 2003 Yesterday. She was 6 months pregnant with our first and her blood pressure was up and down so she was basically off work sick seemingly every other week. That one week when the 100f record went, I took 3 days off, and took her out for drives to Wales/Anglesey. We were sat on the beach about 3 miles south of RAF Valley when it recorded its highest ever temp. What I wouldn't give for another August like that one!

Yes, wouldn't we all Saint!

The August of the following year, plus quite a few Augusts since, couldn't have been more different in nature to that of 2003.

 

The other side of the coin, in the 1990s, there were 9 summer months that were sub 40mm for England and Wales. There have been only 2 such summer months since 2007.

 

The summers of the 1990s generally were definitely better in my part of the world, with the notable exception of 1998. This is when the deterioration started for me. Yes, we had 2003 and 2006, but even during the early middle part of the last decade we had some notably poor summer weather at times. June & July 2002 and August 2004 would have fitted in well with a lot of summer months in the period since 2007 for rubbish weather, IMO.

I wonder if we have to wait for a very active sun before we get more frequent hot, dry, sunny summers 

Why does it always have to be summer when we get the useless, boring below average crap? As much as I'd also hate it in winter, at least it can be a bit more interesting in winter.

Don't you just wish this sort of weather would take place Mar/Apr and Oct/Nov!

Why does it always have to be summer when we get the useless, boring below average crap? As much as I'd also hate it in winter, at least it can be a bit more interesting in winter.

Summers get cooler and wetter, winters get warmer and wetter... it's the inexorable Octoberisation of the British climate. 

The only sign that it's winter rather than summer these days seems to be that it gets dark earlier.

Why does it always have to be summer when we get the useless, boring below average crap? As much as I'd also hate it in winter, at least it can be a bit more interesting in winter.

Also to note why the aggressive wet weather taking place in summer, we had Autumn, Winter and Spring with full 3 month each of little rain around but when summer come, it get very wet and cannot continue to have 3 full summer months with little rain.  In other countries that have dry period would not see proper rain until Autumn come, that nature way of doing it.  Now we are in to August and already lost half of July supposedly summer time.

 

The summers of the 1990s generally were definitely better in my part of the world, with the notable exception of 1998. This is when the deterioration started for me. Yes, we had 2003 and 2006, but even during the early middle part of the last decade we had some notably poor summer weather at times. June & July 2002 and August 2004 would have fitted in well with a lot of summer months in the period since 2007 for rubbish weather, IMO.

Completely agree. 1998 was when the rot set in. A very poor summer and 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004 were all worse than the majority of 90s summers too.

Nothing compared to the unprecedented rubbish we’ve had to endure since, and including, August 2006 though. Barely a decent month since then and an extreme excess of rain and shortage of sun to contend with.

This decade has so far produced one good summer (2013) and one good summer month (July 2014). Asides from that it is a struggle to even find anything remotely near average. Just August 2015 which was sunnier, but also wetter, than average and August last year would get pass marks from me.

Even the 1960s were not so consistently awful with half the years managing at least one good month:

1960 – A glorious June sunnier than any summer month since 1995 and any month since May 2001
1962 – Fairly sunny and dry June
1964 – June and July both sunny and dry
1967 – Sunny and dry June
1968 – Sunny and dry June
1969 – Sunny June and Warm July

July 2017 would have actually been okay had it not been for the permacast gloom between the 19th and 26th which completely ruined the month. Been not too bad since then with average temperatures, variable cloud and the odd light shower while the week 12th to 18th, when I was still in Greece, was the best of the summer. A better month than either July 2015 or July 2016, both of which were diabolical. It actually finished just ahead of 2010 as the third sunniest July this decade despite having a below average total. Shows how desperate things have become.

The lack of warmth really is outstanding once again. Prolonged spells of equable temperatures devoid of extremes are becoming more and more common. The highest temperature in the past fortnight has been just 20.0C which is abysmal for high summer. Lowest max: 15.6C. Wouldn’t hold out much hope for August as over the past decade it’s been worse for warmth than both recent Septembers and the Augusts of the 1960s. It is a complete joke how the temperature can struggle to reach average for weeks on end over summer yet barely go below average all winter

As with June 2016, Lerwick was one of the sunniest places in July. 184 hours recorded there which if we got the same excess here would translate to 246 hours. Hard to imagine a summer month that sunny again in the context of the past decade. The 2010s are on course to be the first decade since sunshine recording began in the 1880s where no summer month even manages 220 hours.

The provisional statistics for July by the Met Office for up to 29 July 2017, really says a lot about how miserable this summer has been. The summer started off not badly in terms of temperatures with a warmer than average month in June, but that was also the wettest June on record and also, yet another duller than average month. July didn't bring us as much rainfall which was actually about average, but the fact that it also wasn't drier than average was enough to confirm that this will go down as a wet summer overall mainly as a result of what happened in June.

Those average rainfall totals for July are similar to what we had during the same month last year with both July 2016 and July 2017 also being duller than average. Last year though, we could at least get to say that July was warmer than average and the most important criteria which makes up a decent summer, is that it needs to be warmer than average. This year, we haven't even been able to make that claim to fame since July has come out colder than average this year and personally, I would much rather be seeing those colder than average temperature anomalies during the winter, than right now. Since July was also duller than average, that makes it a poor summer month here in just about all counts.

What is even more remarkable though, is that this is happening during a year which is currently on course to be the warmest year on record according to the CET records, with that record having last been broken only as recently as 2014. However, I have to question just how reliable those CET records actually are. According to those provisional statistics by the Met Office which I have mentioned, it is only actually the south of England which was warmer than average during July. Both Wales and Northern Ireland came out with average temperatures during July with the north of England along with Scotland, coming out colder than average. If you were to look at that temperature anomaly map and try to guess where the CET region was located on that map, it would appear as though the CET for July should only be around average and yet, the actual provisional CET up to 30 July 2017, is actually a whole degree warmer than average, which is still quite a considerable anomaly. That to me, tells me that there appears to be some discrepancy between the CET records, and the actual provisional Met Office data for that same region.

 

Completely agree. 1998 was when the rot set in. A very poor summer and 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2004 were all worse than the majority of 90s summers too.

Nothing compared to the unprecedented rubbish we’ve had to endure since, and including, August 2006 though. Barely a decent month since then and an extreme excess of rain and shortage of sun to contend with.

This decade has so far produced one good summer (2013) and one good summer month (July 2014). Asides from that it is a struggle to even find anything remotely near average. Just August 2015 which was sunnier, but also wetter, than average and August last year would get pass marks from me.

Even the 1960s were not so consistently awful with half the years managing at least one good month:

1960 – A glorious June sunnier than any summer month since 1995 and any month since May 2001
1962 – Fairly sunny and dry June
1964 – June and July both sunny and dry
1967 – Sunny and dry June
1968 – Sunny and dry June
1969 – Sunny June and Warm July

July 2017 would have actually been okay had it not been for the permacast gloom between the 19th and 26th which completely ruined the month. Been not too bad since then with average temperatures, variable cloud and the odd light shower while the week 12th to 18th, when I was still in Greece, was the best of the summer. A better month than either July 2015 or July 2016, both of which were diabolical. It actually finished just ahead of 2010 as the third sunniest July this decade despite having a below average total. Shows how desperate things have become.

The lack of warmth really is outstanding once again. Prolonged spells of equable temperatures devoid of extremes are becoming more and more common. The highest temperature in the past fortnight has been just 20.0C which is abysmal for high summer. Lowest max: 15.6C. Wouldn’t hold out much hope for August as over the past decade it’s been worse for warmth than both recent Septembers and the Augusts of the 1960s. It is a complete joke how the temperature can struggle to reach average for weeks on end over summer yet barely go below average all winter

As with June 2016, Lerwick was one of the sunniest places in July. 184 hours recorded there which if we got the same excess here would translate to 246 hours. Hard to imagine a summer month that sunny again in the context of the past decade. The 2010s are on course to be the first decade since sunshine recording began in the 1880s where no summer month even manages 220 hours.

Can't disagree with any of that, Richard.

2013 and 2014 have by far been the best two summers (in fact the only two summers that I would even describe as decent here) since the beginning of this decade. July 2013 was fantastic thanks to that two-week long heatwave and July the following year also saw some very warm/hot weather here. I recall that the week the Glasgow Commonwealth games commenced was very hot here. Unfortunately August that year was poor in comparison, although the weather did get better again towards the end of the month.

Meanwhile in N.W. Oregon

Excessive Heat Warning in Northwest Oregon

Active for next 3 days · 

National Weather Service

This alert has been updated.

 

Guess what, I have just watched Gavin P.'s forecast for this month on YouTube and just at the very moment that I finished watching that, it started raining here in Edinburgh after what had actually been quite a nice start to the day for once which has been very rare during this so-called summer which has increasingly become more of an non-event over time. Gavin P. said in that forecast, that he didn't think that this month would be quite as bad as what the models had indicated, but the fact that he still isn't seeing a great outlook especially for here in Scotland was enough to confirm my beliefs that summer is well and truly over (not that we have even had much of a summer recently, anyway). the fact that it then started raining as soon as I finished watching that (it is now raining very heavily as I write which means that the long wait for that elusive completely dry day will now go on for at least another day), just summed up what this summer has been like, and blended very well with the forecast that Gavin P. had just given for this month.