Hi Richard
Havent' logged on for a while due to family issues and then caught covid-19 again and then recovered fine then went back to work and gigged and then caught Norovirus a day or so later!
(It never rains - it pours!) Pun intended because the past few weeks have been dreadful here in SW - also having to mow the lawn more often but on the plus side at least night's are not as muggy or hot, but could do with wearing my sunglasses and miss going to beach!
complete contrast to last year and summers of recent years when we had some heat waves - I don't think we have had a heatwave this summer given we are over half way through and the next week at least is looking unsettled and general average or cooler than average? We have had warmer spells esp in June but generally they are not considered heat waves of +35c or more which is what we are use to in recent years.
Anyway, saw your post and it cheered me up when I felt down.
Keep up the rants Richard.
Hope all is well on here!
Hi Sean
First of all, I'm so sorry to have heard about your various health problems and other issues.
Here on TWO, there are a bunch of users who usually only log on here during the winter which is the busiest time of the year on here. In addition to that, I know that you are normally more of a winter person than a summer person, so I was thinking that this was the reason for your recent lack of inactivity on here.
Not that this matters in any way of course, but I hope that you are now fully on the mend and that we will continue to hear more from you in due course.
Here in Edinburgh, this summer has been very much the polar opposite to what last winter was like. Last winter, we had our coldest December since 2010 with two back to back official ice days which were actually our first ice days since 2010, to have occurred during December. We then had another cold spell back in January although this wasn't as intense as the one which we had last December, and there were no ice official days which came with that.
We also got some snow with those really cold spells. Rather disappointingly, this didn't amount to much at any time, but what snow we did get went on to last for quite a while due to the really cold temperatures at that time.
Sadly though, February was a much milder and completely snowless month (just like February 2011 which was also really mild after that particular winter had started off with the December to remember back in 2010). That was therefore, a classic example of front-loaded summer with just about all of the cold weather happening earlier on.
As far as our summers are concerned, we had two back to back decent summers in 2021 and 2022. The summer of 2021 was just a warm and pleasant summer with very little in the way of intense heat, although August 2021 was a rather poor month. Last summer was hot and sunny throughout, even during last August and of course, I haven't forgotten that it was during last July that the temperature got to above 30°C at all three of my local stations here in Edinburgh for only the first ever time in my lifetime, and on two successive back to back days as well.
I was down in Hawick at the time (which is in the Scottish Borders) and I ended sweltering in temperatures of around 35°C on what was actually the hottest day on record down there. In addition to that, this summer also started off on a really decent note but with the high pressure being centred to our north a lot of the time, it took a while for this summer to actually get going thanks to cool winds coming in from the North Sea.
Later on in June whilst I was down in Hawick, we had a massive thunderstorm which delivered 35 mm of rain in one fowl swoop. The weather then turned a bit cooler and fresher and although we continued to have the odd hot day during the following month, that hot and sunny weather which we had beforehand, never really came back to the same extent.
That has been culminated in what has been a very poor July which now looks as though it will end up being wetter than average, although it's not actually been as wet here during this month as it has been elsewhere due to a least a couple of low pressure systems slipping away to our south and completely missing here altogether.
When you add all of that together, this is shaping to be a classic front-loaded summer with most of the hot and sunny weather happening early on but in order for this summer to be the exact polar opposite of last winter, we needed to get another hot and sunny spell during this month, albeit one which wasn't quite as intense as the one which we had during June.
That hasn't really happened though. Because of the those cool winds from off the North Sea during June which haven't been present during this month to the same extent, it is during this month that we had our hottest day of this year so far. However, even that was a day which went more downhill over time with rain and cooler temperatures eventually setting in and as it stands, it is now looking likely that the temperature here in Edinburgh is going to fail to reach 80°F at any time for the second year out of the last three years.
That is a far cry from last year's 30+°C temperatures although in this modern era where climate change has been such a major headline, I probably wouldn't want it to be too hot. Nevertheless, this is looking like being a cooler than average month here and there has been quite a few "if only it were winter" synoptics which have been in place for quite a lot of the time (some of the models are even pointing towards the possibility of the type of northerly blast at the start of August which at other times of the year (and not just in winter, either) would be delivering snow to quite a number of areas, especially in the north of Scotland and even down to lower levels as well.
That is not exactly the charts which you want to be seeing in high summer when we are looking for some hot and sunny weather. For that, we need the Azores High to be building in towards the UK. Sadly though, the Azores High has been posted missing in recent times, although it wouldn't surprise me if it came back less than six months from now to ruin yet another winter.
If there's any consolation though, we started off this summer with a lot of concerns about water scarcity due to the ongoing lack of rainfall at that time. The wet weather during this month has alleviated those concerns quite a lot which has been enough for most of Scotland have returned to normal on that front, so water shortages are at least something which we don't have to worry about for now. Because it hasn't been as wet here though as it has been elsewhere, we are still currently at alert status as regards to water scarcity, according to SEPA.
What I found interesting is that another user who lives in Cornwall (which is not all that far from where you are) mentioned that there was actually still a hosepipe ban in place there, but this was a few weeks ago and so, that hosepipe ban might well have been lifted since then.
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.