Here in the north of Edinburgh, I wouldn't necessarily say that we've had constant drizzle all the time just by looking outside, although I haven't yet actually been out in that. The rain radar map appears to just be showing that up as a few showers which seems to be quite a fair assessment of what I'm seeing. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that I wouldn't be experiencing constant drizzle here if I was actually out in it.

Just now, rainfall at Edinburgh Gogarbank is being recorded as a result of that, at a rate of 0.2 mm of rain per hour, but nothing is registering at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh as I write with the last recorded rainfall there having occurred at 5am this morning according to weathercast.co.uk.

Having said that though, it wasn't that long ago since the models were predicting that high pressure would be dominating our weather throughout this weekend, and that it would dry all the time as a result. That clearly hasn't happened but then at some point down the line around a few days ago, the models then delayed the onset of that drier weather until tomorrow. This meant that whilst high pressure would already be starting to build in just now, we wouldn't now be getting any real benefit from that until tomorrow which now meant that there was always the risk that we could at the very least, get a few showers during today.

Furthermore, the current position of that ridge of high pressure was now such that it was always likely to be feeding in a breeze from in off the North Sea and so from that context, I don't think that the models have actually performed all that badly on that front as this meant that there was always that ongoing risk as a result, that it would be overcast here due to that easterly muck coming in from off the North Sea. However, I did expect there to have been a bit more in the way of sunshine or at the very least, a few brighter spells and I still feel confident that we will at least, get some brighter weather later on as that is what has always tended to happen here in the end, even though this isn't enough at the moment for this month to currently be running slightly duller than average.

EDIT:

I've just looked again at the actual data for Edinburgh Gogarbank and for Edinburgh Airport, and this shows that the wind is actually coming from the SW quarter, and not from in off the North Sea. That makes it more difficult to know why it has been so overcast here, unless this has happened by means of the possibility this could have been caused by an old and very weak weather front which has got entangled within this air mass and then got stuck over this part of the world.

 

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There's a convergence zone in SE Scotland running into NE England, hence the cloud and some showers developing. XCWeather shows the opposing wind arrows nicely.

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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
2019 181 (up to 13th July)
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 

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Anyone else noticed the oddity of last evening's sunset and afterglow?

Looked like smoke

Rays were evident in afterglow

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No change at all, it’s stayed the same since 9th July.  

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Yet again, we have another day with a decent forecast which would therefore have been expected to get off to a sunny start as a result, but which has failed to do so.

Upon analysing this month's sunshine total so far at Edinburgh Gogarbank, I have noticed at we are now almost halfway through the month and yet in spite of that, we have still had less than a third of the 1981-2010 June Average number of hours of sunshine as I write. This is despite the fact that this month got off to a very dry but cool start with a bit more in the way of sunshine. Even with that though, we still haven't yet had a single day during this month as I write, where 10 or more hours of sunshine has been recorded.

Clearly, this month is therefore going to end up going down as being substantially duller than average unless there is a substantial improvement in the daily sunshine totals during the second half of this month. One reason why this is happening as well, is down to the sheer lack of sunny starts to any given day, even on those days which have been forecast to get off to a decent start.

On most days, there is usually always some sunshine around at some point in time, but the problem here lies in the fact that after those dull starts, the amounts of sunshine during the rest of each day just isn't usually enough to add up to any sort of decent total due to the amounts of cloud which are still around.

Having said that though, June looked for a while as though it was going to be duller than average before a much better second half of June meant that we managed to get away with a sunnier than average month in the end. As for this month though, I would say that it is a completely different story.

First of all, the 1981-2010 average for the number of hours of sunshine is higher for July than what it is for June. This means that in order for July to be sunnier than average overall, there needs to be more sunshine during that month than what is required to make June a sunnier than average month, so this already makes it more difficult for us to get a sunnier than average July than what it is to get a sunnier than average June.

Then, we have to factor in the fact that the days are now getting shorter which means that the maximum possible amount of sunshine which we can get on any day is going down over time as a result. This then makes it increasingly difficult for us to get any sort of big sunshine totals as this month goes on and so if you are going to be getting those big daily totals, the best chance of getting them should be in the first half of this month.

This then makes the very fact that this has not happened during this month, all the more disappointing. In addition to that and whilst we are likely to get some decent days during the second half of this month, there are still no signs in the forecast models of any sustained spell of proper summer weather such as what we had during last year, and this also therefore, reduces our chances of getting any sustained periods where we get a run of decent sunshine totals.

When you add all of that together, I really don't like the way that this month is panning out just now in terms of the overall sunshine totals in this part of the world.

 

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If there is such a thing as the “modern British summer” then I think this late June and early July has epitomised it.

- Nondescript with average rainfall in the North and West
- A lot of Atlantic cloud around but some decent days
- Very hot air not far to the South on the continent meaning even short heatwaves are much more intense than they used to be
- By far the best weather in the SE corner and the South coast, exaggerating the average difference between regions

The only exception being the weather in Scotland not quite as poor as in some recent years, from what I can tell here.

I moved to London from the Midlands 22 years ago and I really notice the difference during months like this. Today is the worst day for over a week here yet it’s still largely dry and will probably hit 22 or 23C.

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Very much so

If you look at the distribution of Kevin's Summer Index in 5km grid squarea as it applies to the whole of the UK the trend from SE to NW is very clear

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The weather’s been perfectly fine this month here I think - generally between 21-24C, sunny intervals and not much rain. Very usable is how I’d describe it. Today was duller but the sun’s managed to come out and it’s 22C. Oh and I’ve managed to get a tan after being out in the garden most of Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

I can’t speak on behalf for everywhere but I think expectations are running a little high after last year.

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Its been very dull here for the last couple of weeks, I prefer sunnier mornings myself, but all we have is the sun coming out about 5pm everyday. Plenty of dry weather though, so useable.
Martin

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That’s pretty much my take on this month too!  

I have absolutely no complaints. Plenty of sunshine, no daytime rain, no wind, mid 20’s temps staying warm into the evenings, not too muggy to sleep!  Very usable!  

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Agreed!

We had a community archaeological dig here in South Cambs for a week and not a drop of rain fell. It got a tad warm digging during the afternoons and frequent breaks in the shade were needed. What was quite remarkable was just how dry the soil was down to the 1m depth of the excavations - a much better experience than wallowing in the usual muddy trench! 

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  I can relate to that!  I’ve spent the past two weeks helping my daughter reconfigure her garden and we’ve been starting early in the mornings to avoid the afternoon heat as much as possible.  We needed the parasol up for respite and I took to wearing a floppy hat, so Gemma now calls me Mrs Bouquet!  Got a lovely tan though!  

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Agreed, but sunshine has been at a premium recently. For example, Heathrow averaged 4.9 hours last week which is below normal. If we get cloudy days, then I prefer the odd one to have some rain too.

 

 

My view is closer the LeedsLad's than yours, oddly enough. We've probably had more rain (and days where it's rained) that in Leeds, but no day after relentless day, as it seemed to be in that 2007-2012 period. Also, looking at Lanky's map of the 'Summer Index' (how was that produced? It's great!), we're hitting about average, and that patch of pink extending through Cheshire is not far from MBY. And I'd imagine that since the end of the 'June Monsoon', we'd be fully in the pink, as it were (oo-er, missus!)

I've not got a problem with this summer, tbh. Well, if we disregard most of June I've not 

 

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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
2019 185 (up to 15th July)
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 

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St Swithin's was dry

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My beloved lawn having seen better days as I enter the 22nd day with just 0.4 mm of rain . . .

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Interesting looking at those summer index totals. There are some surprises: I remember 2009 being pretty decent, particularly in August. 2011 is also unexpectedly low. By contrast I remember 1998 being abysmal. Perhaps both the more recent ones were NW/SE contrast years.

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The period 2007-2012 was characterised for me by an increased occurrence of westerly winds. For NW England, the North Wales mountains sort of funnel the unstable airflow into the Merseyside/North Cheshire/Greater Manchester/Lancashire area, leading to an increased level of PPN. 

That's my theory/perception anyway, based on nothing but random observations. No doubt it'll be factually wrong! 

Oddly, I don't remember the most headline-grabbing summers (the ones with flooding to our south and east) to have been particularly worse than the others in that period, but that might be a sense of 'well at least they're in the same boat - no pun intended - as us up here'. And whilst I can't remember which summer (it wasn't one of the floody ones), I remember some rain falling almost every day for a 6/7/8 week period. For a spell round 2007/8/9 me and a mate would meet up for a quick 9-holes after work on a Tue or Wed, and as often as not we'd get there and either bin it off cos it was raining, or get part-way round and give up, again cos of the rain.

It was a horrendous period of summers. The Jun/July 2013 came out of nowhere.

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I love dry, cloudy weather myself and I have observed more than once that people seem to be a lot more relaxed during such weather. 

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Nice couple of days around here. Mid-twenties and partly cloudy skies, not too bad. This summer has improved decently well after early June's disaster.

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I personally would like more sun. After the disastrous start, it has been pretty average round here. Temperatures have held up well even on rainy days which means any spells of sun have felt warm. It has felt quite humid and my plants and grass are loving it. My fortnightly cutting isn't really enough. Quite a contrast to the dusty yellow ground of last year. It would be good to have a sunny and hot end to July and August.

They are jpg just Screen Shots Excel Spreadsheets displayed at 12% zoom with Excel conditional formatting to show the different value ranges and then a jpg editor to add in a key of colours used based on the ranges. The UK outline comes out automatically as the source data contains dummy (9999) data for non land areas

The disaggregated data is monthly totals (1961-2016) of Max Temp, Sun Hrs and Rain Days (1mm) and is all on the UKCP09 (now CEDA) databases by 5km grid squares hence the fine granularity. They even have some of this in the form of daily data since 1961 but that would have been too much for my laptop !

Just need a ftp client to download loads of txt files and Excel 2016 Data Query to load up the spreadsheets in bulk from the txt files plus Kevin's formula and a fair bit of time to reformat everything

The chart I found the most interesting was not the average Summer Index values by grid square shown earlier but the trend change in Summer Index between 1961 and 2016. This shows that the difference between the SE and NW is getting bigger and bigger. Most places except in Scotland and the SW / Wales have had increases in the SI (mainly due to rising temperatures) but the SE is showing the biggest increase

The chart below shoes the trend

The area around Sheerness (N Kent) and Rayleigh (Essex) shows an increase in SI of 45 on trend 1961-2016 whilst the area around Barnstable (N Devon) shows -17. These are the max min values

I have no idea why these areas should be the extremes, however (??)

 

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The improvement in conditions from June 22nd onwards was quite marked after the horrendous start to the month. And they have remained pretty consistently good ever since. Just 6 days in that period have failed to reach 20C. True there has only been one day over 25C, that of course was the 'one day heatwave' on June 29th at 29.3C. I don't normally get much higher than that so that could well be the highest temperature of the year. Some rain but nothing really significant. A reasonable amount of sun but nothing spectacular. OK, we are now moving into a more unsettled period but with talk of possible very warm/hot weather next week, could this just be a 'blip' in the generally fine weather?

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