Beatiful weather this week down here.

Another festival cancelled due to the weather: the Boardmasters music event in Cornwall has been called off due to forecast storms and heavy rain.

You have to be a real optimist to organise an outdoor event in Britain in August these days, unless it’s bog snorkelling.

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Does anyone take out Pluvius insurance these days or is it no longer cost-effective?
It used to be a "must have" in the ancient days when I organised such things.
Seems the goal posts may have been moved.
Anyone know?

See: https://www.rivaeventinsurance.com/blog/what-pluvius-insurance

Roger

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Well, so much for today being the best of this week as far as our weather is concerned!!

Today started off OK with a nice looking sunrise, but it then soon clouded over and it is now, it is raining here in Edinburgh once again as I write.

The rain isn't anything like as heavy as it was yesterday but for what is supposed to be our best day of this week, this is still rather abysmal.

With the way that our weather is now turning out as well as with the general outlook being as poor as it is for the immediate future, I will just be glad to see the back of this summer now.

Then, we can look forward to seeing what the coming winter has in store for us although based on our most recent experiences, I won't be surprised if there wasn't really anything to look forward to there either, at least from the cold and snow perspective.

 

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Not looking forward to the expectations of strong wind in the next few days. Might topple all mt Tomatoes -Beans and Peas.   Do not want an early harvest.

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Same here Art. Daughter’s having a shed delivered tomorrow and was hoping to get it up at the weekend.  Although, we have a yellow warning of wind on Saturday, yet the Met Office phone app says max wind speed is 24 mph.  So here, it may be a case of wait and see!  

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Not so worried about windfall apples as for windfall trees.😑

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The Reading and Leeds festivals have never been cancelled as far as I’m aware.  That being said, getting muddy and wet is pretty much the classic British festival-going experience. Glastonbury is often a sodden affair. Surely that’s all part of the fun? 

Also, the Boardmasters festival has been taking place since 1981 and I think this is the first time it’s ever been cancelled. Early August is probably the best time of year to organise outdoor events on average, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

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Calm right now but I have some pots with various tallish plants that will topple/break unless I bring them into the shed for the duration.

The sunflowers just coming to bloom look like they will face the snap tomorrow or Saturday. I hate gales in August.

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Just before I thought it couldn't get worse than this it actually has done!! heavy drizzle for 8 hours and light rain followed by heavy drizzle and so mild here now and humid at 19c and it's almost 1am!! This is horrible!

At least in the 'heat wave!' we had night time temps of 15 to 17c here in the south west.

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The sooner the "autumnal" weather arrives here the better - it's been a warm, sticky week and as of right now it's 17C outside (with a 17C dewpoint) and 25C indoors.

Today's high winds can't come soon enough, but even then it's still going to be muggy!

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I’m not moaning yet!  Yesterday was was warm and sunny throughout and it’s been a warm night again but not unbearable.  We have light rain now but it’s the first we’ve had for a while and the garden could do with a drenching.  

We’ve done remarkably well in my neck of the woods this summer and have consistently had better weather than forecast.  I may be moaning by Sunday if the weekend turns out to be as wet and windy as forecast. 

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Manchester Summer Indices 

1954 143
1907 147
1956 155
1912 156
1924 158
2012 164
2008 168
1987 169
1946 170
1909 171
1931 173
1978 173
1980 173
1920 174
1923 174
2007 174
1927 175
1948 176
1938 177
1922 178
2011 179
1985 180
1958 184
1972 185
1916 188
1986 189
1965 189
2016 189
1910 190
1936 190
1988 191
2010 191
1966 192
1998 192
2017 192
1953 193
1963 194
1993 194
2009 194
1902 195
1915 196
1981 196
1928 197
1962 197
1964 197
2004 197
1952 198
2000 198
2019 198 (up to 8th August)
1930 199
1974 199
1979 199 

 

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Most parents will be concerned about what the weather will be like for the school holidays, but that isn't the only point of concern here.

Edinburgh may well only be a small city and only the second largest city in Scotland behind Glasgow in terms of its size, but it is Scotland's capital city as well as being famous worldwide for its festivals. Indeed, the main summer festivals are going on here just now and as a result of that, the population of this city tends to more or less double at this time of the year.

However, I don't think that all of these extra visitors to this city would have been exactly looking forward to the sort of weather which we are getting here just now, which has to be the worst possible weather which they could have been experiencing for that. In fact, the weather has taken such a turn for the worst now that it wouldn't even seem all that appropriate to refer to this as our "summer" now, even though we are still in meteorological summer, technically speaking.

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I look back with fondness at summer 1990; although June was poor, there were countless days of river swimming and beach visits.

Yet the CET was only 16.17.

For this summer to achieve that August would need a CET of around 16.8.

It's looking around 18C for the first third (pre-adjustment). So it seems like a fair chance to me. 

Locally, from 22nd June to today, a period of exactly 7 weeks, only one day has failed to exceed 20°C- that was 19th July(and only two, excluding today, failed to each 21°C) . I personally will remember summer 2019 as a good one, so long as I can avoid comparing it with last year.

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I remember July 90 having a great spell of weather. I changed jobs and had a 2-week gap between leaving the old and starting the new. It was a lovely, sunny spell. Remember going up to the Lakes with a few mates and swimming in Grasmere.

 

This summer has been poor, IMO. For a while in July it seemed that the rubbish & wet June would be redeemed, but it's just been too unsettled. It's been warm, I grant you, but we've hardly gone 2 or 3 days without rain.

I don't need temps up towards 30c to consider it a good spell. Just bone dry and sunny for a few weeks with a high that looks immovable; temps can be low-20's for all I care.

 

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   Will the shed get blown away. 

Some of my plants are now in the brick shed. Others have been staked. Then moved closer to a wall.

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A ridiculous 20C dewpoint at the moment (and the same is true across much of the SE) - it's stinkingly humid. Thank heavens I work in an office with air-con, it'd be insufferable without it.

I'm looking at the low dewpoints up north with considerable envy...

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August has become the crappiest month (relatively speaking) of the year.

We've had prolonged warm, sunny settled spells in each of April, May, June, July, September & October in recent years.

But we need to go back to 2003 to get the same for August. 

Yes, we've had numerous brief spells last a week or so, but nothing going on for 3 or 4 weeks like we've had in other months.

 

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One observation about this summer which I have noticed is that although we have had some decent weather at times which even brought us our hottest day on record here in Edinburgh, there hasn't actually been any sustained spells of decent weather which have lasted for any length of time.

From my childhood memories, I can remember a typical summer from the past as being one where we get a whole couple of weeks somewhere during the line where the Azores High would build in to bring us a decent spell of weather right throughout that entire period, but with the weather then being relatively poor during the rest of that time.

However, this is something which we haven't seen during this summer and since 2014, the only summer which I can recall where that actually happened was last year. Even at that, last August wasn't still wasn't all that great (which shows that we just can't get a decent August these days), although last August wasn't actually as bad as what this month is turning out to be like in this part of the world up until now.

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Widely over 27c in EA today with mostly sunny skies again . The difference between east and west in England is extraordinary sometimes considering how small a country  we are.

 

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It is - normally it's SE and 'the rest'. The path of LP's is jolly annoying.

 

 

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I remember summer 1990 well too; I was 10 then. June was pretty poor overall with a lot of rain and only a few completely dry days and early July wasn't great either. However we had a very good spell from mid-July until around mid-August with some pretty hot temperatures at times too. The better second half of the summer that year IMO more than made up for the poor start.

Agree with that too. I would rather have a sustained settled spell with some warm temperatures and wall-to-wall sunshine for a couple of weeks or more, like we saw last year, than have a one-week wonder with some record-breaking temps only for it all to descend into dross again as has just happened and happened in 2015 too.

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Hi Nick;

had the same thoughts. Lots of rangy plants including aubergines, but also some bushy peppers, chillies and tomatoes look dodgy. The wind is really cranking up a notch now.

So- some in front porch, some up against N facing wall with table to the side, and yes, some in shed. Shed's don't blow away in 50mph gusts but I understand IYNOTW there might be some 60 gusts. Unless it's already falling apart, it should be a safe place!

Like you, we have some tall (6ft+) sunflowers. No doubt they're for the snap.

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Another point that I would like to make is about the fairly large amounts of rain which we have getting during this summer which unlike in many other parts of the UK, has also come after a wet spring in this part of the world.

It is true that we had a lengthy spell of dry weather which started just before last summer and then carried on all the way through last winter which was actually even drier here than what last summer was.

It is true that this deficit had to be made up, especially as the situation in that regard, was becoming rather critical in terms of groundwater levels and so on, as we got towards the end of last winter.

For me though, I would have been much happier if that deficit had been made up during last winter rather than right now during the summer. For me, one of the key things which make up a decent summer is that it should be drier than average. That makes this time of the year, the time when we would expect any large amounts of rainfall to be less welcome on this shores than at any other time of the year.

It is therefore just typical ot the weather in this country, that this overall rainfall deficit from last year is only now just being made up at the very time of year when we rely on dry weather for our various outdoor activities, more than at any other time of the year.

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