My experience of summer 2012 has been particularly bad as I have been in Edinburgh during the brief English warm sunny spells and have also missed the Midlands thunderstorms!
Apart from 2 short spells of great sunny weather in Edinburgh in March and in Yorkshire at the end of May, I can't remember such a bad experience weatherwise in all my 54 years! Nothing at all to interest me apart from rainfall statistics. I have hardly used my garden which is a soggy overgrown mess!
I think if you live in the S and E of England you will have experienced at least 4 warm or even hot sunny spells, albeit brief affairs but for the SW, W, Midlands and all points north - horrendous, Doc sums up the East of Scotland situation very well.
Ah well, as I've mentioned before I'm in the Algarve for 6 weeks from September 11th, surely I'll see some warm sunshine there?
The most depressing feature about the summer has been the lack of sunshine with all 3 months being below average.The effect has been to destroy those light summer evenings evenings as the cloudiness as made them darker than normal.
We did get a pretty decent summery spell up here from 7th-12th August, and from what I recall the good weather of that week covered more or less the entire UK, not just parts of England. That aside though, the summer has been a total joke- must do a heck of a lot better next year!
Agree with that. Even with the amount of rain many places have had it would have seemed bad enough, but as you say the sheer lack of sun has made it seem even worse. The last five summers, although fairly mediocre in the grand scheme of things, all had more sun overall in my area than this one has seen.
A very poor June and July with a lot of very wet weather apart from a 1 week warm, fine spell in July. August wasn't too bad overall; it was drier, quite sunny and at times very warm, but very disturbed in early and late month. It's also been quite a thundery summer here (though very little night time storm activity).
August has been a little bit better here, but only because of the 6 day dry & sunny spell we had between the 7th and the 12th. That's the only thing that has made it a slightly better month here than June & July, but unfortunately there has still been way too much unsettled weather for my liking. If this had been April, it would have been more seasonal as that month is famed for heavy showers, but August (and the summer in general) should see a lot more by way of dry and sunny weather than has been the case this year.
Edited by user 28 August 2012 15:10:13(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Edited by user 28 August 2012 15:30:16(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Well, here in the Midlands, it's been pretty abysmal overall. I'm giving it (a generous) 3/10. It would be a poorer score, but we have had some fine warm weather in August, albeit it's normally been followed by torrential rain/thunder-storms like I've never seen before!
Here's hoping for a fine September which, traditionally, isn't a bad month weather-wise. Off to Wales in a couple of weeks and I'm normally pretty lucky with the weather when I'm away in the UK. I wonder what the chances are of an imminent Indian Summer ... ?
Lots of excellent quality postings. As well as a couple of new members joining in, it even prompted the return of an legendary poster!Just realised something, but I've not seen a single wasp yet now I have come to have thought about it. They usually come out in August, but it's almost the Autumn time and they're not being seen hovering around rubbish bins just yet. The result of a poor summer, even though it wasn't that bad around here? Just as well as they are the chavs of the insect world as they go around stabbing people as often as they like (can picture them wearing wearing little hoodies over tiny Burberry caps).
Good point Ian. I have also noticed the distinct lack of wasps this year. There were plenty of queens around in the warm weather during March but since then hardly anything. I have seen a small number of wasps in the last week or so but only a handful. Usually there are loads around here at this time of the year and I absolutely hate them and have something of a phobia to boot. So for me this year has in some ways been a superb summer because I can get outside without having to worry about being surrounded by wasps.
August has actually not been a bad month here. Temperatures have been generally very pleasant with just a few hot days. I don't especially like really hot weather so this month has been about right for me. The second half of July was also quite good really.
So I would say a summer of two halves where I am. From mid July it has been perfectly acceptable, nothing out of the ordinary but very pleasant. The first half of summer was really dire - cold, wet and dull all at once. It doesn't get much worse than that. It really was quite depressing so the improvement in the second half has been most welcome.
Going by those figures, 1912 must have been one heck of a bad summer if it was considerably wetter than this year, as it appears to have been according to Kevin's figures. The difference between 1912 and this year is that the summer of the former year came after a very good one in 1911; last summer was mediocre to say the least although nowhere near as bad as this year in terms of wetness. Maybe next year will surprise us in a good way- we can but hope!
I live slightly too far east to have had a really wet summer. It seemed to me as if the rain stopped about 10 miles from here, I have seen some brilliant thunderstorms but not where I am . Rain wise I had 91.4 mm in June, 52.6 mm in july but only 14.8 so far in August. Year on year i'm flat on rain for the last 3 months.
This year has been slightly warmer than last year at a mean degress for july of 17.2 compared to 16.9 last year.
So overall it feels like I have had a really poor summer compared to last but the stats say something slightly different.
The summer was only the half of it; most of the spring here was rubbish as well. Since the clocks went forward, we've had this, in terms of genuinely good weather:
* One nice week at the end of March* One nice week at the end of May* One nice week at the end of July
The sequence was broken somewhat with better weather in August, though again only the one nice week (around the 10th) and plenty of poor weather too. I've lost count of how many times I've had to put the lights on well before six o'clock, sometimes much earlier than that.
June was horrendous, probably the worst summer month I can ever recall -- and I'm including July 2007 in that, though obviously that wouldn't be the case for those who were affected by the flooding. It rained and rained, it was freezing cold half the time (it's absurd to need a winter coat in late June) and I had the lights on at home as much as I would in November. An easy 0/10.
July was also extremely poor until the improvement right at the end, which I suppose I grudgingly concede redeemed it a bit. Maybe 2/10 for that month, all of which comes from those last few days. It might have been close to a 0/10 again otherwise.
August has been a more mixed month. Certainly not a notably good month, and outside that one week around the 10th, not many days when you could be sure about leaving the umbrella at home. The Bank Holiday has been depressing, too. But as I'm feeling generous, 4/10.
So, averaging those out, an overall summer rating of 2/10, which feels right. None of the summers since 2007 have been great, but this one has been the worst.
Edit: Mind you, it doesn't help that I'm going to NW Scotland next week... just as usually-wet-this-summer England gets a nice spell and remarkably-dry-this-summer NW Scotland goes back to normal!
Edited by user 29 August 2012 13:16:19(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
This pretty much shadows what was going on in the Southern hemisphere summer between December and February.
Sydney had it's coldest and wettest December since the mid 1800's! Both January and February were a little warmer but the wetter than average conditions continued and ended up as the wettest summer since the early 1950's and in the top 5 wet summers ever recorded. 30c was reached in November 2011 but wouldn't be reached again all summer in Sydney.
I remember the first week of December 2011 in Sydney very well. Driving rain, gale force wind, temps around 15c and tourists down by the harbour wondering what the hell was going on I have never known a summer week like that in Sydney before.
Christmas Day turned out to be one of the very few warm days that month.
Last summer would take some beating.
Edited by user 30 August 2012 06:40:51(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Here in NW Lincs, a very poor Summer overall. The joint wettest Summer I've recorded (equal with 2004) at 329mm. However, there was a distinctly decent period between July 21st and August 14th. In that 3 week period, it was frequently quite warm and sunny, and with only 8mm of rain.
Apart from that, the rest of the Summer was dreadful. I noted that there were 14 consecutive days with rain here between June 27th and July 10th. Despite 8 days with thunder this Summer, only one of these days (June 15th) actually produced something resembling a decent thunderstorm.
Rain fell on 55 out of the 92 days here, that would be considered high for a Winter season!
So this Summer only gets 2/10 from me.
The only upside is that at least we had a great week of warmth in March and another towards the end of May, so with September looking up as well, at least there's been a reasonable amount of Summery weather this year, even though it's been thinly spread across 7 months!
This summer has been by far the worst in living memory in my area. Although we haven't had a good summer since 2006, this year was horrible even by recent standards; unremittingly cool, very dull and unbelievably wet.
Even the most elderly residents of the town can't remember anything like it, and the records back this up. The misery of this summer in terms of rainfall, lack of any decent sunshine or heat beats even the shockers of 1985 and 1954. And they took some beating! Bloody awful would be a gross understatement. The only consolation is that the first week in September doesn't look too bad!