I thoroughly enjoyed yesterday.  A fantastic 90F, with unbroken sunshine.  Wonderful see to see all 3 boys of mine splashing in the pool and then to be-able to enjoy a kayak trip around the rocks afoot the White Cliffs of Dover without worrying about being chilly.  Then topped off with a Mediterranean style evening beer or three on the balcony, watching the flag on Dover castle veer southward.  Bloomin' marvellous. 

Not for me the tiresome, hackneyed whingeing about the weather.

Now, that really does sound lovely! 

But when your boys are grown up and you’re a couple of decades older, you might be a tiresome hackneyed Whinger!  

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26°C at lunchtime yesterday and I didn’t even need to water the new plants in the garden.

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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
2019 172 (30th June)
1931 173
1978 173
1980 173
1920 174
1923 174
2007 174
1927 175
1948 176
1938 177
1922 178
2011 179
1985 180 

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June wasn’t too bad a month in the end, especially compared to recent summer standards, with a rare above average sunshine total. However temperatures were only average and it was still wetter than average - just can’t get dry, sunny summer months any more. Sunshine total was actually the same as July 2018, which wasn’t that great a month apart from the first week and you could say June 2019 wasn’t that bad other than the second week.

July, on the other hand, looks truly awful. Horrendous start to the month, feeling more like October with barely any sun; very cool and windy with tedious drizzle showers

Outlook truly dire as well. Shocking in fact with N/NW winds delivering utter garbage day-in-day out with endless cloud, cool temperatures and wind 

Looks like I’ll be swapping one pile of dross for another when I go to inland northern Portugal in a weeks time. Must be the worst ever summer there with no sign of proper summer arriving and it’s now into July. Cloudy infill crap there again today as there seems to have been every day for weeks.

This is just a joke http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/ncep_cfsr_europe_t2m_week_anom.png 

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 This is just a joke http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/ncep_cfsr_europe_t2m_week_anom.png 

Oh dear Richard, it's almost as if the weather knew you were comimg!

But really, that chart looks worse than it it is. For are start, those are anomolies and we're still only talking 1-2C below average which for northern Portugal I would imagine is still the high 20s.

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I prefer hot weather as I get older and had no problems with functioning normally in 43C last week. Therefore the current weather in the UK is very boring for me ("dog days" - in the sense of the expression that it is so quiet you can hear the dogs barking) but many other people probably see it as a Goldilocks spell.  

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Believe or not and despite the recent rainfall which we have had, I would still say that we need to be seeing a bit more rain overall than what we are seeing just now.

Last year, we had an overall rainfall deficit at Edinburgh Gogarbank of 138.1 mm as compared to the 1981-2010 LTA.

This year, we had a wet spring at Edinburgh Gogarbank along with a very wet start to this summer. Even with that though, there was still a rainfall deficit for the first half of this year of 29.4 mm.

That has mainly occurred as a result of the very dry winter which we had, but this deficit is in place in addition to last year's deficit which means that the overall deficit over the 18 month period from the beginning of January 2018 to the end of June 2019 is currently running at 167.5 mm.

This means that we would need to have had another 167.6 mm of additional rainfall during this year so far on top of what we have already had so far, before I could be fully satisfied that we don't actually need any more rain for now.

Ever since around the middle of April 2018, we have never been able to get any sustained wet spell of weather which has lasted for any significant length of time and even when these wetter spells have occurred, the next significant dry spell has always been just around the corner. Indeed, that pattern continues to still be on-going even now.

This means that the rainfall which we have been getting has been coming only in fairly short bursts even though these often produce very large amounts of rain in a very short period of time as we have seen recently.

In order for the deficit to be properly made up in the best possible way, it would actually be much better if this happened much more gradually even if this meant that we had a much longer wet spell with very little in the way of dry weather, rather than by means of these massive downpours which we have been seeing recently. That would then give the ground a much better chance of soaking that up, rather than everything just running away again after a few places had been flooded out in the meantime.

I'm not suggesting in any way that I am concerned about a possible drought in this part of the world, but it is rather concerning that it has completely dried up here yet again with that deficit still very much in place, and with the general outlook still continuing to look very dry as well.

 

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Oh dear Richard, it's almost as if the weather knew you were comimg!

But really, that chart looks worse than it it is. For are start, those are anomolies and we're still only talking 1-2C below average which for northern Portugal I would imagine is still the high 20s.

I was in the Algarve last June and for four days we had northerly winds, large sheets of cloud and temps around 21-22c.  Was even cooler further North.  It can happen from time to time. 

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June wasn’t too bad a month in the end, especially compared to recent summer standards, with a rare above average sunshine total. However temperatures were only average and it was still wetter than average - just can’t get dry, sunny summer months any more. Sunshine total was actually the same as July 2018, which wasn’t that great a month apart from the first week and you could say June 2019 wasn’t that bad other than the second week.

July, on the other hand, looks truly awful. Horrendous start to the month, feeling more like October with barely any sun; very cool and windy with tedious drizzle showers

Outlook truly dire as well. Shocking in fact with N/NW winds delivering utter garbage day-in-day out with endless cloud, cool temperatures and wind 

Looks like I’ll be swapping one pile of dross for another when I go to inland northern Portugal in a weeks time. Must be the worst ever summer there with no sign of proper summer arriving and it’s now into July. Cloudy infill crap there again today as there seems to have been every day for weeks.

This is just a joke http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/ncep_cfsr_europe_t2m_week_anom.png 

I'm just back from 5 days in Spain and it was unbearably hot - 36/37c every day. 

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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
2019 173 (up to 2nd July)
1920 174
1923 174
2007 174
1927 175
1948 176
1938 177
1922 178
2011 179
1985 180

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Lovely summer evenings with a lot of sunshine.

The weather has been great since last Thursday.

looks like we might end up getting our two back to back decent summers (last summer and this summer) after all with the way that this is going, which is quite remarkable given how unlikely this was looking just a short while ago.

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Absolutely hideous yet again with overcast skies the whole stinking day. More of the same tomorrow and in fact no sign of any sunny days or the temperature reaching average in the disgusting outlook 

This unrelenting NW dross is just the most hideous July weather imagineable. It’s been like autumn since the change of month due to the vile winds, overcast skies and lack of warmth even when the sun is out. The 2007/2012 permacast hell strikes again

The weekend looks a total abomination. Then I'll be spending next Monday evening and most of Tuesday in Manchester/Stockport before flying out to Portugal and the weather forecast there is for cloudy skies with the threat of rain on Tuesday which is just great when you have a day to kill before heading to the airport. Could be next Wednesday before I see any sun at this rate but given the ridiculous amount of cloud that has been plaguing Portugal recently I wouldn’t even bank on that

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Rather a nice, sparkling day today with fluffy cumulus and low humidity. I’m sitting in shorts in the garden feeling pretty comfortable as the swallows circle overhead.

Funny thing is it was just about average max temperature (23C), and a little cooler than normal overnight (13C), so average overall albeit with more sunshine. It’s a reminder that London’s average July weather is pretty serviceable. Borderline summery.

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Temperature recovery nicely underway here too; had 21.7*C  yesterday and 23.2*C today for maximums. 2 and 3*C above the FV3 maximums respectively, based on which tomorrow could hit 25 or 26*C and Friday 26 or 27*C. Might still manage 22 or 23*C on Sat, perhaps even 24*C given its cooling from the north, which tends to lead to some of the largest errors with FV3/GFS (second only to a brisk NE or E flow).

Really liking the Azores-western Scandinavia ridge trend for next week; fits well with the Nino standing wave - and what a relief it is to see that pull through (at least for a time...) after such a difficult couple of months.

 

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Really liking the Azores-western Scandinavia ridge trend for next week; fits well with the Nino standing wave - and what a relief it is to see that pull through (at least for a time...) after such a difficult couple of months.

Don't forget the slight IO flareup next week, which will try to give us some low pressure. Nothing like earlier in June, but still probably some welcome rain. 

My question here is, where is the variability of the weather which we used to get here before, and which we don't seem to get any more apart from maybe the odd isolated burst of "interesting" weather, such as when we had those recent thunderstorm events during June?

It's fine to have what has being referred to on the MO thread as "Goldilocks" weather where it's not too hot and not too cold. The problem which I have with that though is that if this is the only type of weather which we ever get (as has been the case throughout this month so far) then to me, that just gets boring and rather tedious after a while.

I will soon be travelling down to Hawick for a week to spend time with my family and was originally planning to go down there on the week beginning 15 July 2019. After my Mum got back to me on that one though, it now looks more likely that I will be going there a bit later instead on the week which takes us up to 5 August.

As far as the weather is concerned though, it doesn't look as though it actually matters when I go down there because regardless of which of those weeks I pick, the weather really isn't likely to be any different from how it is just now. Yet, that is not how it used to be before because in the past, it used to be that I would get a good week for that I was lucky enough for that to coincide with the best weather. Equally, my visit could coincide with the worst weather and I would have a miserable time of it as a result.

That however, just generally doesn't seem to be the case any more. That is seen by the manner in which the models have backed away from the middle part of this month becoming more unsettled and of course, Gavin P. in his summer forecast predicted that this summer would get better over time (he is usually very good with this sort of thing as well).

If we've had a lot of bad weather such as what we had during June, we appreciate a lot more those times when the weather is much better but if how the weather just now is always generally how it is, we don't actually tend to appreciate it as much because we usually then end up taking that for granted and in the end, it's just not the same.

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The definition of a prefect summer's day here for me today.

24C with low humidity, deep blue skies and a gentle breeze.

Bliss.

Meanwhile it is colder than average grey and damp here. I guess the end of last week was “summer”?

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Meanwhile it is colder than average grey and damp here. I guess the end of last week was “summer”?

I am sure you'll get more summers this year.