Ok I just recall July being decent and the heat at the start of August, well down south anyways. 

Here in the middle, in North Notts, during the past two months we’ve only had one day of measurable rain at the end of May, 6 spots of rain on about four occasions and one day when I heard distant thunder.  It’s been over 20c almost every day, mostly between 23 and 26c, with just a few days topping that, although it’s been cooler at night and on three occasions in May, we came close to a frost.  Most notable is the amount of sunshine we’re getting.  We’ve had many mornings like today that start (for me about 4.30am) with thin cloud but it’s burnt away just after sunrise.

For me, the weather is just perfect!  Long may it last. 

That doesn't mean that I actually want the weather to deteriorate, far from it. Nevertheless, we have been experiencing virtually constant good weather since before this summer even started and the UK as a whole, is just now renowned for getting good weather all the time on such a constant basis as is what is happening just now. With that in mind, it is important to have a sens of realism here because if the weather was to go downhill for a while, I still don't think that we can have any complaints about that, given how good our weather has been until now.

Furthermore, the farmers and growers would be getting at least some of their badly needed rainfall if that happened, so this would be a win-win scenario for everyone if that ended up happening. Then if there was a quick return to high pressure after that, this would still end up going down as a decent summer anyway, where most people would probably have forgetten over time, that we even had that temporary breakdown in the meantime.

The record was broken on August 2nd in Worcester that year, I remember because I was in Worcester that day. The next day it was broken again by Gloucester. That record stayed until August 2003, I think.

1990 was a good summer, but if my memory is correct it was one good week followed by one ordinary week, repeatedly. This may explain why it doesn't appear in Kev's best summer list.

As per my previous post, we naturally tend to think IMBY and forget that the weather can be very different in different areas.  Two people can argue one year was better than the other and they’d both be right if they lived miles apart. 

Yeah my memory is fuzzy I recal 1989 being great defo as I think the that free newspaper (the colour one) did a articel about how many days above 25C we had had. I just recall being surprised that 1990 was pretty ok, buy like you say it may have been a N/S thing! JUne wasnt great but July was good. I went Youth hostelling in augst in the Lake District and it was very wet. I guess its all in context because apparently 1975 was a good summer but as 1976 was so great people dont remember it (Ithink thats where I got the idea that good summers come in pairs lol) like 1995 and 1996 or was it 1994 and 1995? Or perhaps that was wishful thinking that they did come in pairs.

But this summer is turning out to be decent well I would prefer the heat we had last week to what we have this week, amazing what a difference it makes coming from the east opposed to the south!

Ok my memory is dodgy then lol! I recall the humdinger of a storm we had though that day, no rain just thunder and ligtning

With the jet stream in such a northerly position, Iceland seems to be getting its own spring and summer 2012 at the moment, whilst we sit under warmth, dry and blue skies.

https://twitter.com/bbcweather/status/1015234939351191553

Driest summer months on record for England and Wales (mm)

 4.3 June 1925

 8.2 July 1825

 9.1 July 1800, August 1995 

 10.3 June 1921

 12.4 June 1826

 14.4 August 1947

 15.0 August 1940 

 15.8    June 2018

 16.5 June 1868

 17.8 June 1962

 18.1 June 1949 

 18.7 June 1794, June 1976

  19.4  June 1923

9th driest summer month ever recorded for England and Wales

Yesterday I was saying that the cloud we had for an hour late afternoon was a rare thing of late, yet we have cloud forming again now, just as it did yesterday.  It’s still sunny at the moment and 29.1c and it feels oppressive again. 

I’ve just been watching two hang gliders circling above our house under a cloud. One has obviously found a thermal and ascended but the other didn’t and has landed on the park.  

Manchester Summer Indices

1976 301
1995 298
1983 278
1955 277
1911 274
1984 271
1959 269
1975 268
1949 267

2018 266 (up to 6th July)

1989 262
2013 260

The curse of "8" summer has been broken regardless what happens to the second half of summer. We are now 40% through the meteorological summer.

How is this actually calculated? It's obviously cumulative but how?

All of the summers from 1994 to 1996 were pretty decent here, but 1995 really was the stand-out one.

In fact, as far as my own area was concerned, the whole period from 1989 up to and including 1997 wasn't bad for summer weather here. Even those summers which over the piece were never really spectacular such as 1991, 1992 and 1993, saw some warm and dry spells at some point, whether it was early on or late in the season.

10 x mean maximum temperature + (total sunshine hours/67 - rain days/8)

So it can fall by cooler, wetter, cloudier weather occurring. 

OK thanks. I understand now. Is this an 'official' way of measuring a summer index or something you have devised yourself?

It was devised 30 or so years ago.

Manchester Summer Indices

1976 301
1995 298
1983 278
1955 277
1911 274
1984 271

2018 270 (up to 7th July)

1959 269
1975 268
1949 267

If say starting from today, there was zero hours sunshine for the rest of the summer, rain was measured every day and the mean maximum for the period was just 15C, the index was turn out in the end to be 162

Obviously, that is not going happen as 55 days with zero sunshine is nigh on improbable. 

Aberdeen Richard might beg to differ :)

This summer so far is mounting up very well in the summer index. I wonder if it will pass 300 and keep going.

So my totally unscientific car dash display recorded 39c earlier this Afternoon (Slough) wonder if anyone can beat that?

Hottest so far was 36C this morning when I got in to go to the tip. Settled down to 29C. 

Hottest dash temp anywhere was 48C in car parked in full sun in Provence a few years ago. Actual temp was about 37C.

43C the highest for my car temps in August 2003.  My dad used the car around 3-4pm and recorded 39-40C on the roads so I know some areas had reached 39C and 40C temps before but due to lack of weather station so it hard to know.  My ice warner gadget from Cyprus recorded 38.6C here for few seconds on 10th August 2003 as this record every second.  You need a thermometer that record every second to pick up the hottest or coldest air otherwise those that record every 30 or 1 minute miss out the highest temps recording.  My old WS2500 was bad as it record every 1 and half minute.

That actually makes today, the second dullest day of this month, and even the dullest day of this month so far at the beginning of the month, still resulted in 6.8 hours of sunshine of being recorded at Edinburgh Gogarbank on that day. That is quite a remarkable statistic for here in Scotland where we're not exactly renowned for getting a lot of sunshine at any time of the year, even with the length of daylight increasing at this time of year, the further north that you go.

As a result of today's sunshine totals, a total of over 100 hours of sunshine has already been recorded for this month so far at Edinburgh Gogarbank (the exact total for this month at the end of today was 100.8 hours of sunshine) and we're not even a third of the way through the month yet. I'm not sure what the all-time record is for the sunniest July on record at Edinburgh Gogarbank, but we surely can't end up being all that far away from that if this keeps up for the rest of this month.

I can also further back that up by confirming that the sunniest July on record at the botanic gardens according to their own website was in 1989 when a total of 263.1 hours of sunshine was recorded in July of that year as the this year's figure at Edinburgh Gogarbank will easily beat that if this carries on for the rest of this month. As far the botanic gardens in Edinburgh itself, I don't have all of the latest data from there but since 87.8 hours of sunshine were recorded there for this month up until the end of Saturday, it appears to be a similar story there.

All in all, this just shows how remarkable this month is turning out to be, and its role in showing us how remarkable a summer this is turning out to be.

Even if this summer deteriorates in the second half, I think this summer will now be deemed as the best summer of this decade to many people (unless of course 2019 somehow managed to pull something really special out of the bag).

At the moment, I think we can safely say that this has been the best summer since 2006, maybe even 1995?