IIRC even the start of June 1976 was nothing special. We moved to Kent at Whitsun and the temp was quite ordinary when I had to resume teaching for the second half of term in Manchester leaving the family to settle in. It was maybe a fortnight later when they were running around in swimming costumes while Manchester had normal temps. It wasn't until the 23rd that date records started getting broken. 

https://www.torro.org.uk/extremes/date-records/max-temp 

Remember it well Dew. Also remember 1975 when we had a grass frost on at least one June morning. Apparently there was snow in places in lowland England too. Although 75 isn't up with the top summers, it was good overall with Southampton reaching 30°C in all 3 months. 

It was listed in the top summers of the century in Ingrid Holford's book the Guinness Book of Weather facts and feats (along with 47, 33, 11, 76).

You related to Denis Howell?

I can't recall one in May-July, when surface heating is at its peak, that has been so dry in the south despite not much in the way of high pressure to force stability.

My personal experience was mostly positive, despite the nagging chill to the wind for a time in the first half.

A cloudier method of producing cool temps is now in effect, before a break Thu, return Fri, then more of a break this weekend when we get a sunshine and showers regime. Signs of more wet weather next week, with temps increasing to perhaps a bit above average. Not great overall in my book, but could be worse.

Based on the typical cycle of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), we should see an opportunity for a more pronounced spell of settled, warm or hot weather approx. 3rd week July. The extended EC model has been hinting at that lately.

With quite a La Niña-like profile to the Atlantic-Europe sector, August is very much up in the air. If that state is uninterrupted, probably not a very inspiring month for the UK, especially in the north. Otherwise, scope for a notable drier, hotter interlude, as demonstrated when temporary more Niño-like states emerged in the Augusts of 2020 and 2022.

Rekindling this from way back in May to note that this low bias of GFS has continued through the cooler weather of early to mid-June plus early July so far. For today, as an example, it insisted on 17°C right through to today's 00z and the true maximum proved to be way up at 19.7°C.

Interestingly, for June as a whole it was on average 0.2°C too high for the overnight minimum temps, but a whopping 1.7°C too low for the daytime maximum temps.

Opening 3 days of July have been 1.6 and 1.9°C too low, respectively.

Overall, this means any forecasts using GFS as a basis are depicting an extremely cool run of weather, when in reality it's turning out to be only a little bit below the 1991-2020 average (-0.47°C anomaly for 1st-3rd).

Sadly, in my admittedly more limited experience with ECMWF, it's not a lot better. UKV is a marked improvement, though, albeit not without still being a bit on the cool side from time to time. Last week, several days peaked about 1°C above UKV's prediction.

It's fascinating that even in this day and age, we still can't nail 2 m temperature predictions at less than 24 hours lead time.

To be fair to GFS, even UKV, usually the best performer for my area, only had 17-18°C across the nearest two grid points.

Looking like the first sub 15C CET since 1988 with a possibility of sub 14C CET. That would be the first sub 14CET since 1922.  😮 

He used an algorithm based on cumulative Sun Hours, Average Maximum Temperature and Cumulative rain days (>= 0.2 mm IIRC) for his local readings oin Manchester

With his permission I hijacked this a few years ago to do my own version for my area in SW London which generally came out significantly higher than his nearly every year due to lower rainfall and higher temperatures down here on average

As there are so many complaints about this year's summer I thought it might be worth having another go at it. This one shoes this years data by f=day number of the summer (1-92) starting at day 10 for the best and worst or=f recent summers 2012 and 2018 and the best and worst for the last 125 years (1954 and 1976) plus 2024 so far

This year is just about bang in the middle of these and way better than 2012 to which some comparisons hav ebeen made

The graph is below and right click + open in new tab to see it fuller sized

I'm sure NE England and SE Scotland would be towards the bottom of the pack 🙄

NE England maybe but as for SE Scotland, I'm not so sure about that.

Here in Edinburgh at least, this has been a dry summer so far to such an extent that SEPA even have us at early warning status as regards to water scarcity.

To me, I would expect that to boost our index a bit for this summer even if those other factors for the temperature and sunshine totals aren't so good.

https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/07/june-2024-earths-13th-consecutive-warmest-month-on-record/

Doesn't feel like it here! But the link has a comprehensive list of global temp records for June and for the rest of the year, 99% of them heat records. 

Greenland, which appears to be monopolising our weather supply at the moment, did have the coldest N Hemisphere temp value for June, -33.9C on the 2nd.

I loved those. I wonder what happened to Kevin Bradshaw. He was good on here.  🙂 

Amazing, considering the sun didn't set!

Early provisional Met Office statistics for 1 June to 15 July say the summer so far has actually been slightly drier than average. 113.8mm of rain has fallen across the UK, which is 45% of the long-term meteorological average for the whole of the season. At this point, you’d expect 49% of the total to have fallen. (though this has been backloaded with July wetter than June for most places.)

At the time of writing, the mean temperature in the UK [for June - mid-July] stands at 13.04°C, which is 1.55°C cooler than the long-term meteorological average for the summer season and the 17th coolest start to summer since 1960 ... the lowest mean temperature recorded in the UK [from 1960 onwards] was 11.22°C back in 1972. The lowest 12 average temperatures for the period were all recorded before the year 2010, with the start of summer 2012 being the coldest in the 21st century at 12.77°C.

Plenty more stats and graphs in the link.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c147v82gxp2o 

No agenda; please treat simply as statement of fact

The point to this is that a farming acquaintance in Essex always used to take holidays in July and come back at the start of August for the harvest, but in 1976 had to come back early i.e. in the last week of July as the corn was ripe. Now it seems that despite all the moaning about a cold summer, the harvest is about a week earlier than it was 50 years ago.

Our blackberries are well into their peak now, and the pears are fattening up nicely.

I have to say that after a poor start this summer is not bad at all. Makes a nice change to have some decent weather in the school holidays, rather than the usual glorious June that turns to crud as soon as the kids break up.

August will be make or break for whether 2024 goes down as a good summer. A decent August (especially for my week in Cornwall during the third week) will put it firmly in the good camp.

Following a 30.9°C max yesterday, today has just about managed a 2nd in the 30s, at 30.1°C.

Even during the climatological warmest weeks of the year, two in a row isn't exactly common in these rural surrounds.

Recent UKV runs have hinted that tomorrow might even make it three in a row, if sunshine remains plentiful until early afternoon. Low confidence of course given sensitivity to fine detail.

Still looks plenty warm in these parts Fri and through the weekend, so I have a feeling the building isn't going to be cooling off quickly - more testing nights to come.

Speaking of, it was the warmest night of 30th-31st July on record here last night, not dropping below 18.3°C and with the relative humidity peaking in the mid-80s % as a result of some spotty rain from high-based convection in the early hours. One of the most uncomfortable nights I can recall in this country, despite the aid of a fan cooled by (initially...) ice-laden water. It seemed that while it lowered the indoor air temp, the resulting increase in relative humidity meant it didn't really feel any fresher.

Rarely does a summer pass these days without a hot spell lifting the temp into the 30s °C here. Last year's extraordinary September heatwave was a bit of a cheat, mind, relying on the astrological definition of summer to qualify!

On the plus side, recent days have been much better but the first half+ of the summer was generally disappointing.

🤣🤣🤣