This dreary garbage continues, only 17 hours of sunshine for July and currently 19mm of rain. Cool cloudy and gloomy.
This is the worst start to July since 2007, maybe worse with the sunshine totals.
Ditto for here in Edinburgh although unlike in 2007 or 2012 (and even last year to a certain extent), rainfall hasn't been a massive issue here during this summer. June was only slightly wetter than average here, and we had a real struggle to even get that.
During this month so far, we have had around 20 mm of rain until now but overall, this summer hasn't been anywhere near as wet here as what last summer was and even with that total for this month which I have just mentioned, that is also happening this month as well.
Of a much bigger concern though, is the fact that this has been such a dull summer until now. So far, a total of just 16.7 hours of sunshine has been recorded for this month at Edinburgh Gogarbank as I write with our sunniest day of this month yielding just 7.9 hours of sunshine. That comes on the back of a very substantially duller than average June and given that the days are now gradually shortening, the prospects of this summer somehow being sunnier than average overall, already don't look good now even if we manage to get a sunnier than average August as we will then only be less than a month away from the Autumn Equinox once we get to the end of August.
That could have implications for the year as a whole as well because before this summer started, it had been thought that the exceptionally sunny spring which we had might be enough to carry us through to a sunnier than average year overall, even if this summer ended up being relatively mediocre. However, this summer has been so dull here up until now that is now, no longer certain that this will be sunnier than average overall even if the autumn and early winter are sunnier than average, due to the fact that it has been the first part of this summer that has had the most amount of available daylight, that has been so exceptionally dull.
Finally, even the temperatures have become more of a concern. June was at least warmer than average here with a couple of back to back days when the temperature reached around 80°F here (26 to 27°C). Furthermore, the CET is only running slightly colder than average just now. However, Hadley always go by the 1961-90 average for that and if you went by the 1981-2010 averages for that, it would actually be even colder than it actually looks at first glance.
Furthermore, our temperatures here in Edinburgh are running 0.8°C colder than average for our minimum temperatures, and 3.0°C colder than average for our maximum temperatures which gives an overall anomaly of -1.9°C for this month, as compared against the 1981-2010 averages.
The result of this is that this summer as a whole, is now also running colder than average with a mean temperature anomaly of -0.7°C. According to those 1981-2010 averages, this month should be our warmest month of the year and so, it is ridiculous that a certain location within the UK still managed to record an official air frost during last night in an era where we so often struggle to get very many air frosts, even in the depths of winter.
To put that into context, we all saw how massive an event that was in February 2019 when the UK recorded its first ever temperature of over 20°C, during any of the winter months. What happened last night in the Scottish Highlands can therefore be seen as the exact opposite of a similar event with those high temperatures occurring in January instead of February.
Just to show how massive an event that was in February 2019, we are currently in what should be the middle of summer and yet, we still haven't managed to get anywhere near that 20°C mark during this month so far.
The north of Edinburgh, usually always missing out on snow events which occur not just within the rest of Scotland or the UK, but also within the rest of Edinburgh.