I am hoping for a repeat of 1995, 2003 or 2018 summers which both was prolonged and no cloudy heat spikes with up to max 35C while most days 25 to 32C.  Don’t like the recent 5 years of heat spikes which resulted several weeks of cloudy days before and after even after 40C in July 2022 was very poor dull month that was in my memory compare to July 2018 memory of sunny days and extreme parched beautiful landscapes.

There is nothing 'beautiful' about parched landscapes, Jires, in my opinion at least. Give me green and lush anyday. 

Now lovely and cosy warm 21.5C as I type so the house finally losing the latent coldness as it took a long time to get rid off.

If it's still lush and green by mid July down here then its turning into a crap summer!  It's quite normal for the landscape to dry up and yellow out down here during the summer.

FTFY. Certainly up until the mid 90s it was unusual for things to turn parched and dry, indeed my memory of summers in the 80s for example is of things generally being lush and vibrant. It was in the 90s that hosepipe bans, parched lawns and so forth became more common, and indeed these days you would expect a run of yellow grass for part of the summer - something which would have made headlines 30 years ago.

Personally I wish we could go back to the summers of the 60s. Temperatures staying below 30, or even 25, everything lush and green - perfect.

This is just the worst of the lot. 2023 had the interesting snowy spell in March and last year had a brilliant Easter weekend. I can't think of a single positive thing to say about this garbage.  The only good thing is I was able to spend time away from here in Florida but it just makes it all the more depressing to have to come back and endure this poison.

Almost 2 1/2 years of this crap with the weekends having a 10% sunshine deficit over the weekdays. It's just incredulous and getting worse and worse with this absolute and utter dross. Looking like the third virtually sunless write-off weekend in a row when we had three successive days with 12 hours sun during the week. There was cloud about yesterday but it cleared during the morning whereas this extensive filth looks like hanging about and extending well inland as well. There is just no escaping from it.

I heard in the news about record number of young people not working and I don't blame them. You get nothing out of it in this country. Laughable that cretins say it's good for your mental health. Like hell being locked up indoors during all the fine weather then being slapped in the face with unusuable grey/cold/wet garbage on your days off is good for your health in any way whatsoever. It's the precise opposite. Depressing beyond words.

What is good for your health is being able to get outside and feel the sun on your face and get some exercise done, something that is a chore in this rancid weather so little wonder there is also an obesity epidemic.

I utterly loath the quality of life here. It's always been poor but now it's pretty much non-existent. It's a human rights abuse to have to endure what's been suffered for the past 2 1/2 years.

I do love an easterly flow!

What gets my goat up with this as well is that the English biased so-called "UK" mainstream media will still dress this period of weather up as the warmest spell of the year so far as if that was the case in every single location within the UK, thus ignoring the fact that there are actually some areas within the UK such as Aberdeen and here in Edinburgh where it's mostly overcast with a freezing cold wind from off the North Sea and temperatures which are refusing to rise.😡

There's no English 'bias' about it at all. When they say 'warmest day of the year so far' it means for *somewhere* in the UK, not everywhere. This would be backed up by temperature reports from the warmest spots, just recently the 23 point something from near Winchester (I think) . Nobody would conclude that it was the warmest day in the UK *overall*.

For normal summer is when we get semi parched landscape but if very parched like 1995, 2003, 2006 and 2018 which was very exceptional to see.  If very lush that mainly weed fest then it mean bad summer like recent summers from 2019 to 2024.  Also parched or semi parched help to reduce cloud amount as there no moisture to rise up.

I do already know about the official meaning of the "warmest day of the year so far" in terms of how that would be reported by some official body like the UK Met Office, so you are completely  right in that regard.

My issue comes from the fact that the mainstream media will often twist that in order to place their own slant on things, which means that the messages which comes from that might not necessarily be the same what the official data for that is actually trying to give us.

The big newspapers such as the Daily Express are particularly bad when it comes to that sort of stuff as we all know and given that the vast majority of people in the UK live in the south of England, the UK mainstream media is often biased towards there when it comes to its general reporting as a result even though it is supposed to represent the UK as a whole and not just the south of England.

This can therefore give the impression that according to their reports, the weather based on what it's like in the south of England is the same right across the UK when actual fact, it might be the complete polar opposite of that in other locations such as here in the east of Scotland.

That is therefore, the point which I was trying to raise from all of this.

I'd say any "cognitive dissonance" on weather trends depends on the context in which this is being discussed. There's a big difference between ordinary folks and the media expressing their recall and current impressions of local/seasonal weather and a scientific analysis of reliable current and historical data - and even that may need debate. Memory is not always reliable. "Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers." 🥂

The 'vast majority' of people in the UK do not live in the south of England! I'm not going to go around hunting for statistics but from memory I think about 16 million people live in SE England, that's from a UK population of 67 million.

Many years ago on uk.sci.weather I got it into my head that there was rampant 'southern centricity' as regards weather reporting and got into quite a few arguments over it. Eventually I accepted that this wasn't the case or at least not nearly to the extent I imagined.

The point I am making is that once you think something is happening then you will start actively looking for it, and begin to see it when it isn't really there.

No that 16 million is the greater London area not the southeast. 

14.9 million to be precise for the metropolitan London area. 

So no, not a majority however I too feel that there's a slight South East (more London) bias to weather news. 

As for the Daily Express and other such tabloids they exist for the enjoyment of their readership - not necessarily for facts - that's especially true when it comes to weather. 'Snow bomb to hit Britain' anyone?!

I wonder if we will ever get a month that is so sunny that I can't ever be beaten, only matched? It's theoretically possible because there are only a finite amount of daylight hours in each month and they never change. It would be mad if we ever did see such a month.

I would imagine that this spring is probably already on course to be our sunniest spring since 2020 just now at least and we might even be beating that just now, even though the last couple of days hasn't been so sunny here on the east coast of Scotland due to that easterly muck which keeps on coming in from off the North Sea.

That spring of 2020 was one which we weren't really allowed to actually enjoy due to the first COVID-19 lockdown starting at that time, so it's good to now be getting a sunny spring which we can actually get to enjoy to its full potential.

At the same time though, we can't also forget what happened in the summer after that sunny spring of 2020 because just as the COVID-19 restrictions were slightly relaxed for a while, we then went into what was a very poor summer so I'm hoping that this doesn't happen this year as well.

we had a drier than average winter here and this now looks like being an exceptionally dry spring. That clearly can't go on forever and given the overall nature of the UK's weather, we are bound to get another wetter spell of weather at some point in time.

It would therefore be just like the thing if that was happen during the summer, the very time of year when more than any other time of the year, we actually want it to be drier than average since that is what makes up a decent summer in my books along with the fact that it should also be warmer than average and sunnier than average at that time.

For us to end up with a poor summer after that would just be typical of our weather here in the UK and I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised if that was to end up happening, otherwise I can see nothing other than the usual drought threads and concerns about possible water shortages showing up on this forum as a result of the dry winter and spring which appears to be preceding that.

Even as it is, we already have higher than average concerns about possible wildfires due to the dry weather and the fact that this is happening so early in the season is very concerning indeed.

Definitely a bias towards the home counties i agree. Known many a time the temperatures along the south of the southern counties mid to upper 20's even occasionally low 30C, often multiple days on end, but  little mention from the Media or met office because London area under clouds chilly wind low 20's at best! But the moment those kinds of temperature are expected for the home counties and Midlands the media is all over it. 

Cheer Up! Tomas Sch ,,,, has been using his bulletins today to emphasise very warm conditions expected in the coming few days in the north of Scotland and the contrast with cool weather in such places as Newcastle and Norwich.

Utterly detestable. This spring is another hellish weekend curse season devoid of anything remotely interesting.

I'll be honest, I personally do enjoy a parched landscape. It's more the novelty factor for me as it's not something you really associate with the UK and Ireland in the summer. It's a bit like deep snow fields in winter, it's more the experience of seeing it.

I recognise it causes problems though, as do most prolonged weather events.

I actually prefer to see luscious green, and parched landscapes by themselves hold no attraction for me (but get your 'novelty value' argument)

However, as parched landscapes are a symptom of a prolonged dry spell (and in summer that also almost certainly means warm/hot), I really want to see them!!

👍

Me, too! 

Even 2020 wasn't a great summer.