It's a perception in here that Augusts have been disappointing in the last decade or so, compared with a generally reasonable run of Junes and Julys. Looking at the stats the perception seems to be right, with the rot setting in after 2003. Data below all based on the Met Office England and Wales series up to 2017, i.e. before this summer.

Temperature:

• The 1971-00 mean is 15.71C. Since 2004 6 years have fallen below this, and 7 of the remaining 8 were less than 1C above the mean. No month has hit 17.0C or above apart from 2004


• by comparison 9 of the last 14 Julys were above average (including 3 above 17C, excluding this year); 13 out of 14 Junes were above average!


• the average June E&W temperature since 2003 is 14.6, over 1C warmer than the 1971-00 mean


• August is one of only 2 months along with December where there is no statistical trend in E&W temperature since 1970

Sunshine:

• LTA is 182 hours. Since 2003 9 of 14 years were duller than average, and only 2 had more than 200 hours (2005 and 2016).


• Contrast with June where only 3 years were below average, 11 were sunnier than average, and the mean for the 14 years was a very pleasant 199 hours (even with greater sunlight hours available that is a big gap);


• July has actually done quite badly too. Although it averages 196 hours since 2003, this mainly came due to fantastic years in 2006, 2013 and 2014. The remaining 11 years were all duller than average

Rainfall:

• 9 of 14 Augusts wetter than normal, 3 with more than 100mm


• Not one August below 50mm. Mean rainfall for the 14 years 87.9mm compared with LTA of 70mm


• Actually on rainfall June and July haven't done very well either: 71mm for June vs LTA of 64mm, and 83mm vs 55mm.

Generally:

Combining all the above into my E&W summer index, the August results are stark.

In this recent period August has scored the 2nd, 3rd, 11th and 13th worst Augusts in my series back to 1970. Again, only one of two months with December not to have seen any upward trend in the summer index in the period.

Most Augusts is the nasty month and it come with lot of dull weather, cool and rarely get a week long settled or heatwave spell.  Air quality get poor and damp..  After a very good May, June and July not sure why August came and to ruin it completely.  If was on other countries having a very good summer the goodness will end in the proper Autumn season not in remaining summer season.  That the purpose why September to November are Autumn season which indicate temperatures start dropping, more rain and unsettled weather.

A good thread this Tim.

My perception of August is one of high humidity, reasonable warmth, relative dryness but often rather cloudy. In other words an OK'ish month.

Here on the SE coast the SST's contribute to this. By this time of year the SST's are around 18-19c meaning that SW'ly flows (frequent since 2003) have contributed to high minima...an almost sub tropical lazy feel. This evening is one of those 

The high frequency of SW'lies in August down here obviously equates to a NW/SE split meaning that perceptions of August further north is naturally rather poorer.

It must be said that diminishing day length by the end of the month whereby it can be nearly dark before 8pm on dull days contributes to the impending autumnal feel of things.

As you allude to in your post, most July's have been pretty poor too, with just 3 or 4 actually being good. August has suffered the most but I think it's fair to say that summers in general have gotten worse, and from what I can gather most warming in the UK has taken place outside of summer - we have already had the warmest winter/spring/autumn on record in recent years if I recall, but the summer record remains elusive.

Plus, I don't think any August in recent years has managed to be quite as awful as June and July 2012, with June 2012 potentially being the worst June of the past 30 years if not longer. 

If you look at the long-term averages, in southern and eastern England, August is the sunniest month of the year in percentage terms, and in some cases even beats June in total sunshine hours despite June having the clear advantage in day length. As an example, at Heathrow, August has 46% of possible sun, easily the highest of any month.

I stopped thinking of summer when I moved to Durham.

Corrected above

Summary of my weather station data since 2007:

Years with below average mean max since 2007:

June: 2007, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016 = 6/12

July: 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 = 7/12

Aug: 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 = 7/11

Years with below average sunshine since 2007:

June: 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 = 9/12

July: 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2017 =8/12

August: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 = 6/11

Years with above average rainfall since 2007:

June: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017 = 7/12

July: 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016 =8/12

Aug: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,2014, 2015, 2017 = 9/11

June scores worse for sunshine, which I feel is the most important element, whereas August scores worst on temperature and rainfall. To be honest all three months have been dreadful and it's hard to identify any summer months that have been decent since 2007. It's become almost impossible to get a sunny, dry summer month.

June has been in terminal decline since the middle of the last century. Average sunshine has been 152 hours between 2007 and 2018 compared to 177 hours between 1971 and 2006 and 192 hours between 1920 and 1970. Obviously that got a big boost from this years total for 2007-17 the average was just 144 hours which is the same as March averaged for that period .

Sunshine averages for 2007-17/18 with 1971-2006 in brackets and 1920-70 in square brackets:

June: 152 hours (177 hours) [192 hours]

July: 158 hours (171 hours) [158 hours]

August: 149 hours (166 hours) [149 hours]

July and August sunshine levels have reduced but are in line with pre 1970s. It is June which used to be a sunny month which has declined drastically. July and August never used to be as good but now they're all as bad as each other 

Most Augusts is the nasty month and it come with lot of dull weather, cool and rarely get a week long settled or heatwave spell.  Air quality get poor and damp..  After a very good May, June and July not sure why August came and to ruin it completely.  If was on other countries having a very good summer the goodness will end in the proper Autumn season not in remaining summer season.  That the purpose why September to November are Autumn season which indicate temperatures start dropping, more rain and unsettled weather.

Agree with this, particularly the "air quality get poor and damp". Today is a good example in Cambridge. Cloudy, humid, warm, the air almost possessing a 'clingy' quality with air pollution adding an extra dimension. In one word: crap.

I'm struggling to remember a really good August. I missed August 1995 as I was working in Riyadh. August in Riyadh is crap as well, but for different reasons. There is clearly a trend for crappy Augusts but one question should be asked: why?

I think using CET figures may be a little misleading, as what we are all looking for to give a good August is decent maxes, and we've had crap Augusts where high mins have kept the CET a degree or so higher than it otherwise would have been. Additionally, climate change has inched average temps up anyway.

I also think the CET (and countrywide sunshine/cloud and rainfall figures) mask regional differences. The SE/EA/S have fared less badly in terms of general weather from a higher occurrence of winds from a WSW-NNW quadrant.

When I was growing up, I heard many times that the prevailing wind direction for the UK is SW'ly, and seeing the old BBC charts would back this up - Atlantic lows most frequently moving in a WSW to ENE or SW to NE direction, more often than not skimming the UK to our north west. Now we seem to see a higher preponderance of lows going straight W to E, WNE to ESE or even NW to SE. This is just my memory, which is prone to errors, or it may be accurate in this case but the late 70's into the 90's may be the statistical anomaly.

Whatever, there's certainly been a paucity of very good Augusts since the great 2003 spell

(as an aside, was 2016 the best post-2003 August? We spent some time in Devon during the first half of the month, and it was glorious - although I do recall it being a bit of a 'one week good, one week bad' scenario through that month/second half of the summer)

I think using CET figures may be a little misleading, as what we are all looking for to give a good August is decent maxes, and we've had crap Augusts where high mins have kept the CET a degree or so higher than it otherwise would have been. Additionally, climate change has inched average temps up anyway.

I also think the CET (and countrywide sunshine/cloud and rainfall figures) mask regional differences. The SE/EA/S have fared less badly in terms of general weather from a higher occurrence of winds from a WSW-NNW quadrant.

When I was growing up, I heard many times that the prevailing wind direction for the UK is SW'ly, and seeing the old BBC charts would back this up - Atlantic lows most frequently moving in a WSW to ENE or SW to NE direction, more often than not skimming the UK to our north west. Now we seem to see a higher preponderance of lows going straight W to E, WNE to ESE or even NW to SE. This is just my memory, which is prone to errors, or it may be accurate in this case but the late 70's into the 90's may be the statistical anomaly.

Whatever, there's certainly been a paucity of very good Augusts since the great 2003 spell

 

(as an aside, was 2016 the best post-2003 August? We spent some time in Devon during the first half of the month, and it was glorious - although I do recall it being a bit of a 'one week good, one week bad' scenario through that month/second half of the summer)

Should've said! We were there then too - could have had a beer.

And, yes, it was glorious. Not desperately hot, but low 20s and sunny pretty much every day.

 

Should've said! We were there then too - could have had a beer.

And, yes, it was glorious. Not desperately hot, but low 20s and sunny pretty much every day.

We were near Exmouth. Took a boat trip to Torquay one warm, sunny day and it was stunning. Me and the kids were in the sea and/or outdoor pools most days (just had one poorer day mid-week, but we had the indoor pool to use)

I think using CET figures may be a little misleading, as what we are all looking for to give a good August is decent maxes, and we've had crap Augusts where high mins have kept the CET a degree or so higher than it otherwise would have been. Additionally, climate change has inched average temps up anyway.

I also think the CET (and countrywide sunshine/cloud and rainfall figures) mask regional differences. The SE/EA/S have fared less badly in terms of general weather from a higher occurrence of winds from a WSW-NNW quadrant.

When I was growing up, I heard many times that the prevailing wind direction for the UK is SW'ly, and seeing the old BBC charts would back this up - Atlantic lows most frequently moving in a WSW to ENE or SW to NE direction, more often than not skimming the UK to our north west. Now we seem to see a higher preponderance of lows going straight W to E, WNE to ESE or even NW to SE. This is just my memory, which is prone to errors, or it may be accurate in this case but the late 70's into the 90's may be the statistical anomaly.

Whatever, there's certainly been a paucity of very good Augusts since the great 2003 spell

 

(as an aside, was 2016 the best post-2003 August? We spent some time in Devon during the first half of the month, and it was glorious - although I do recall it being a bit of a 'one week good, one week bad' scenario through that month/second half of the summer)

A good synopsis, I agree 2016 was a good August for my part of the area too, good sunshine and nice temperatures with a few days here nudging 30c. Richards analysis also interesting regarding sunshine hours.

WNE to ESE

That's one helluva confusing wind direction!

I meant WNW, obvs.

 "WNE to ESE"

That's one helluva confusing wind direction!

I meant WNW, obvs.

I translated the txt as "Wine to Ease [the pain?]"

R.

I concur in that I'm sure that the sort of cloudy yet warm weather that's been around here a lot this past week or so has been by far most common in the Augusts of the past 15 years.

This particular August is seeing the most extreme manifestation of that weather type that I can remember; 6 of the past 10 nights have had minimums in the range 15.8-17.2*C, and despite all the cloud cover, the same number of days have peaked in the mid-20s and with all but one of the rest making it into the low 20s. 

These stats, combined with the hot first week of weather, make for a mean max so far of 24.2*C (upper-10% of Augusts 1957-2017), a mean min of 13.6*C (upper-5%) and an overall mean of 18.9*C (upper-5%). 

That's very impressive coming off the back of a record-warm July for max and overall mean (with min in upper-5%) which in turn followed a June for which all three stats were in the upper-5%.

I've wandered off-topic now so I'll stop here (but p.s. - my summer mean is at 18.85*C. 1976 was 18.12*C. If only Thu-Sun wasn't looking so fresh!).

Good topic. Broadly concur with the general thrust of Tims initial post. Augusts in Northern Ireland were better in my younger period of life 1970's/80's and 90's. Would also agree that 2003 was a watershed and since then most Augusts have been at best disappointing and some occasions plain atrocious. 2008, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2017 all fall into the worst category.
Prolonged anticyclonic weather with a classic 'high to the east' seems almost impossible to achieve in August nowadays - though quite a few Septembers following the worst Augusts have been far better.
Its just another little oddity really what keeps my interest in the weather. One of these years an August like 1947 or 1976 will appear when its least expected. Lets hope it'll be 2019 !!

Think I’ll do a good recent Septembers thread next. Just to jinx the coming month, like.

I’ve also noted that a lot of Augusts seem to go downhill after a hot first week with temperatures in the 30s, often the peak of the summer. 2013 is an example, so is this year of course, but also 2004 and a number of others. Will look up the numbers tomorrow

Question should be why months seem to get into a repeated pattern? Sometimes even defying a pattern in the surrounding months eg Augusts 1921 (wetness) and 2006 (lack of excessive warmth)

Its not the first time there has been a run of poor Augusts. Augusts 1912-1931 were unremarkable as a whole.

The Augusts of 1946-1963 were largely wet.

There were comments in the late 1930s on what appeared in the decline in the month of April. Then came the 1940s and suddenly the month perked up with a series of warm Aprils. a new repeat pattern became established

From 1846 to 1885, there were numerous mild to exceptionally mild Februaries in that period. Even on occasions when it wasn't mild overall, the month seem to defy the trend of the time for instance February 1879 was not that cold compared to the surrounding months.

Why did the Aprils of the 1790s oscillate between the extremes?

A run of cold Januaries from 1807-1816 

The number of occasions that November was colder than the following December from 1910 to 1925.