5 / 10 here in East-Sussex, this summer.

We have had some pleasant days, but all too often these have occurred during the week when many of us are working so of no real benefit.

A lot of wind this summer. a. lot. of. wind. - I usually expect a few gusty days but the garden has been absolutely hammered.

A lot of cloud too, in fact i can scarcely remember a day this entire summer that has been 100% cloud free. Often days have either started, or ended cloudy. On many occassions i've settled in the garden, early evening, hoping to enjoy the last of the sun, or do some stargazing, only for mucky cloud to drift in and spoil the moment.

More rain than i can ever remember, too. My region was subject to some quite significant and localised rain with showers rolling in off the channel in ribbons. On numerous occassions these showers have been flowing directly over east sussex, and this isn't an isolated phenomenom, the weather has defaulted to this pattern often over the past 12months. The MetOffice figures published yesterday don't seem representative of my experiences, but they're very much national/regional averages so need to be viewed in context. The Environment Agency figures for rainfall seem far more accurate, with the LTA by summers end still around the 150% mark.

In summary its been a tolerable but forgettable summer. Wind aside the garden has benefitted from the ample rainfall and i've been largely pleased that i've not had to endure too many humid, sleepless nights, but just a couple of weekends with unbroken sun and settled weather would have been nice.

Edit - Reading Snowtastics summary above they could easily be writing about my home in the South East. I should add none of my dog walking routes dried up fully this year, which is unprecedented. Often i'd nip out in flip flops but its been almost exclusively wellies and walking boots all summer. Not sure who these South East posters are that had a better summer than me, but due to the local variations they could easily be 20miles east or west of me and have had a totally different season.

Originally Posted by: MRazzell 

Autumn started here in August and the removal from the forecasts for any dry warm period that had been forecast for the weekend and beyond just compounds that. 95mm of rain so far this month. It seems a long long time since there has been a spell of warm settled weather here.

Originally Posted by: doctormog 

The latter half of the summer certainly has been "cack" and "really poop". The charts from the MetO prove it, too, the little island on which I live was sunnier than the nearby mainland (105-115% sun for summer, 110%-130% for August) and it's just typical - I hate heat, sun, and humidity and Sheppey has been a magnet for it.

Today has at least been a bit cloudier, and there was even a brief shower earlier! It's done nothing to stop the warmth, though, another effortless 25 today...

This view via my weather station is typical of the summer since the mid-July shift (note the PC stays on GMT year round):

https://ukwct.org.uk/weather/wx.jpg 

Yes, it's autumn now but summer continues apace. Hopefully tomorrow really will only reach the 20C that's forecast... it'd be nice to sleep in somewhere that wasn't a sauna.

Here's the MetO version of the charts as reported by the BBC - larger and more of them.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/weather-and-climate-news/2024/uk-experiences-coolest-summer-since-2015 

Originally Posted by: Retron 

Ratings for Summer 2024 can still be posted in the 'Summer moaning and gloating' thread. Although its been moved to the 'Classic Threads' forum, it isn't actually closed.

Originally Posted by: DEW 

Originally Posted by: lanky

I have used Kevin Bradshaw’s “Manchester Summer Index” formula to plot the summer indexes for 2024 and the previous 7 years 2017-2023 for both NW and SE England

This index combines Maximum Temperature, Sun Hours and Rain Days into an index value ranging from about 150-350 for the whole or part of a summer

There was a fair bit if debate this year about how different the summer felt between the north and south of the UK and this is borne out by the two graphs.

The NW England graph show that 2024 was almost bottom of the 2017-2024 summers for that area in terms of the index value whereas in the SE it was a fairly average summer being around the middle of the pack

The SE index is on average higher by about 75 due to average maxima being 3-4C higher (40% contribution) less rain days (40%) and more sun hours (20%) but this year the difference was about 95 in favour of the SE

Yes but Summer started in May with the Highlands having a lovely warm dry May whilst further south the rain continued.

 At the end of May water restrictions were being put in place in the area of Assynt. Plenty water now.😀

Originally Posted by: bledur 

August rainfall total. Very dry for eastern parts of England with less than 25mm widely from Essex all the way up to Tyne & Wear. Incredibly wet for western Scotland, parts of NW England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2024/8/2024_8_Rainfall_Actual.gif 

Originally Posted by: LeedsLad123 

August rainfall total. Very dry for eastern parts of England with less than 25mm widely from Essex all the way up to Tyne & Wear. Incredibly wet for western Scotland, parts of NW England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2024/8/2024_8_Rainfall_Actual.gif 

Originally Posted by: LeedsLad123 

In theory you could have a legendary August with loads of dry sunny days and hot temps - but the rainfall total was higher than average due to a few days of torrential downpours from thundery pulses moving up from France

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow 

Here's the anomaly values, which backs up your opinion:

However, that's only half the story. The number of days where any rain fell paints a less dry picture:

Many areas had a month where less rainfall than average fell - but there were an above-average (or average) number of days where rain fell. That generally typifies a poor month.

In theory you could have a legendary August with loads of dry sunny days and hot temps - but the rainfall total was higher than average due to a few days of torrential downpours from thundery pulses moving up from France

Originally Posted by: Saint Snow 

Not sure if much can be done about that?🤔

bledur wrote:

To be fair it wasn’t that much drier in the north in absolute terms in May just drier compared with the long term average. Here’s the rainfall data: 

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2024/5/2024_5_Rainfall_Actual.gif 

And the sunshine values: 

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/pub/data/weather/uk/climate/anomacts/2024/5/2024_5_Sunshine_Actual.gif 

Originally Posted by: doctormog 

Yes that backs up how it was as from the maps you can see that the Assynt area was one of the driest and sunniest. There is so much regional  variation in that area. Certainly the rivers entering the Kyle of Sutherland were at extremely low levels for most of the month.

Originally Posted by: bledur 

Can anyone view this image? above

Originally Posted by: tallyho_83 

According to David Braine of BBC Spotlight Weather:

Summer 2024 has been the coldest since 2015.

I don't know about coldest but definitely a lot cloudier than average for sure!

Originally Posted by: tallyho_83 

Given below are the final summer statistics for Edinburgh Gogarbank from all of the data which I have available which are:

Temperature (°C)

Lowest Minimum:                                                               3.00 (on 12/6/24)

Highest Minimum:                                                             15.60 (on 18/7/24)

Mean Minimum:                                                                10.62

Minimum Anomaly:                                                           +0.17

Lowest Maximum:                                                              13.30 (on 5/6/24)

Highest Maximum:                                                             24.70 (on 5/8/24)

Mean Maximum:                                                                18.85

Maximum Anomaly:                                                           +0.17

Lowest Average:                                                                 9.55 (on 5/6/24)

Highest Average:                                                               19.02 (on 28/7/24)

Average Temperature:                                                       14.73

Average Anomaly:                                                             +0.17

Lowest Diurnal Temperature Range:                                   2.67 (on 21/8/24)

Highest Diurnal Temperature Range:                                  15.71 (on 30/7/24)

Average Diurnal Temperature Range:                                 8.16

Other Temperature Statistics

Single Figures Minimum Temperatures:                              34

Double Figures Maximum Temperatures:                            59

Double Figures Minimum Temperatures:                             58

Maximum Temperatures Above 20°C:                                  33

Tropical Nights:                                                                     0

Maximum Temperatures Above 30°C:                                  0

Number of Frosts

Ground Frosts:                                                                       1

Rainfall (mm)

Total for summer:                                                                   151.0 (70.1% of 1991-2020 summer average)

Wettest Day:                                                                           16.2 (on 22/8/24)

Highest Hourly Total:                                                              4.8 (on 25/7/24 at 20:00)

Highest Ten Minute Total:                                                       2.8 (on 14/6/24 at 12:10)

Rain Days: 34                                                                           (100.9% of 1991-2020 summer average)

Dry Days:                                                                                 37

Longest Dry Spell                                                                     3 days (22/6 to 24/6, 28/7 to 30/7, 29/8 to 31/8)

Longest Non-Dry Spell                                                             6 days (1/7 to 6/7)

Most Consecutive Rain Days                                                    5 days (19/8 to 23/8)

Longest Period Without a Rain Day:                                        9 days (1/6 to 9/6)

Month with lowest rainfall total:                                              June 2024: 34.0 (49.4% of 1991-2020 June average)

Month with highest rainfall total:                                             August 2024: 68.2 (91.3% of 1991-2020 August average)

Month with fewest rain days:                                                   June 2024: 9 (80.8% of 1991-2020 June average)

Month with most rain days:                                                      August 2024: 15 (134.3% of 1991-2020 August average)

Wind Speed (mph)

Average Mean Wind Speed:                                                     9.1 (114.8% of 1991-2020 summer average)

Highest Mean Wind Speed:                                                      26.6 (on 4/7/24)

Highest Wind Gust:                                                                   46.3 (on 27/6/24)

Most Common Wind Direction                                                 WSW

Pressure (mb)

Lowest Pressure:                                                                        987.6 (on 22/8/24)

Average Pressure:                                                                      1010.1

Highest Pressure:                                                                       1029.4 (on 1/6/24)

Sunshine Total (hrs)

Total for summer:                                                                      258.1 (55.4% of 1991-2020 summer average)

Sunniest Day:                                                                            13.0 (on 31/7/24)

Sunless Days:                                                                             4

Most Consecutive Sunless Days:                                               2 days (10/7 and 11/7)

Month with lowest sunshine total:                                            June 2024: 2.5 (1.5% of 1991-2020 June average)

Month with highest sunshine total:                                           August 2024: 162.5 (111.5% of 1991-2020 August average)

Month with fewest sunless days: June 2024:                             0

Month with most sunless days: July 2024:                                 3

Conclusion

As far as the temperatures are concerned, it was a very much average summer but it was our coolest summer for some time and there were very few occasions when I actually felt all that hot. In addition to that, not a single temperature of 25°C or above was recorded at Edinburgh Gogarbank during the entire summer which is very disappointing even for here.

The beginning of the summer was particularly cool with even a ground frost being recorded on one occasion.

However, it was a substantially drier than average summer overall in terms of the actual rainfall amounts with June being a particularly dry month but in spite of that, the number of official rain days was actually very slightly above average during the summer.

In addition to that, it was also a substantially duller than average summer overall with August being its only sunnier than average month.

In all in, a very disappointing summer overall and for that reason, I can't give it any more than 3/10 in my books.

Originally Posted by: johncs2016