Yet another ridiculously awful Saturday with no redeeming features whatsoever. Grey, windy and stupidly cold at only 11C. Absolutely and utterly REVOLTING. Shouldn't be seeing anything this bad until late September at the earliest but it's just the same horrific filth day in day out.

Four out of five write-off Saturdays in August is incredulously bad and makes this the most miserable and depressing August I've experienced. Not only that but I would place it in my top 5 list of most detested months ever along side March 1996, December 2002, June 2007 and July 2012 

There are no words to do justice as to how awful this extraordinarily bleak and depressing second half of August has been. Only two or three days where it has been acceptable to sit out in the garden for even the briefest of periods. Barely any sun, highest temperature since the 13th a woeful 18.9C and most days in the past week feeling cold not just cool which is ludicrous for August.

Looks like it will just pip 2014 as the coldest second half of August since 1986 but with far less sun. Touch and go whether we will complete only the second sub-15C August week in the last 60 years.  The highest it has reached since last Monday has been just 14.4C but a max of 15C is forecast for the coming Monday.

There have only been two better than average weeks the entire season: 20th -26th June and 6th-12th August. Neither brought anything memorable. Once again it is a summer memorable for all the wrong reasons. The stupidly cold, dull and windy second half of August and the equally poor sub-polar first half of June which brought day after day of single figure temperatures like nothing I had ever experienced before. Felt like living in Svalbard.

Talking of Svalbard, only six days in this dismal summer here managed to reach the 21.7C that was recorded in Longyearbyen on 25th July. They had four consecutive days reaching 20C in July which we failed to achieve in either July or August and only once in June (23rd-26th). Desperate beyond comprehension when you can't do any better than a bleak, polar wilderness unfit for human habitation

Just what the hell is happening to our summers? 

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Summer 2020 definitely reminds me of summer 2004, warmer than average June and August but a somewhat cooler than average July. The July in both summers being particularly poor especially the first half. Both summers noted for their thunder although SE parts won't agree!

Both summers had summer gales. This August doesn't look like it will be as wet the August of 2004

Remarkable the similarities between this summer and the summer of 2004.

Both Augusts are going to go down as warm wet months, they even share the drop in the running August CET value at the back end of the month.

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Manchester Summer Indices, temperatures have kept it from being even lower

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
2020 182

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Manchester Summer Indices, temperatures have kept it from being even lower

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
2020 182

Thank you Kevin. I always look forward to your Manchester Summer Index.

I lived the first half of my life in the Manchester area, before moving in the mid Eighties to Worcestershire. I found the Index very close to my memories of Manchester summers (although I had 1969 down as much better than the index, but this is just memories). Since moving, in most years the index bears out what I have experienced, some years not so much, the difference between Manchester and Worcestershire is more marked in some summers than others.  I still have many friends and family in Manchester and see them often, so I do get a feel of what weather they have been having. 

I have actually thought this summer was OK. Plenty of high temperatures and thunderstorms (my 2 favourite types of summer weather). I only keep temperature records and the mean maximum averages have been reasonable, especially August which would have been a great month if the temperatures hadn't fallen away in the final 10 days.

 

Remarkable the similarities between this summer and the summer of 2004.

 Both Augusts are going to go down as warm wet months, they even share the drop in the running August CET value at the back end of the month.

Warm, yes. Wet? Certainly far from that as far as my neck of the woods is concerned. My lawn still has bare patches from the dryness where it seemed to have killed off most of the grass for good.

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Warm, yes. Wet? Certainly far from that as far as my neck of the woods is concerned. My lawn still has bare patches from the dryness where it seemed to have killed off most of the grass for good.

Sounds like opposite of here where it wasn’t warm but was definitely wet. A mediocre summer would be a very flattering description for the season just passed for this location compared with LTA or what would count as a decent summer up here. Disappointing and underwhelming throughout. 

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Warm, yes. Wet? Certainly far from that as far as my neck of the woods is concerned. My lawn still has bare patches from the dryness where it seemed to have killed off most of the grass for good.

Must be pretty localised because the South East England regional total has it the wettest August since 2015 and about 148% of the August average.

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Must be pretty localised because the South East England regional total has it the wettest August since 2015 and about 148% of the August average.

What precise area does the South East England regional total cover? It does look as though there have been some considerable variations in rainfall across it, as we only had 59% of the local LTA in August, and I think that 'fairweather' posting from Essex has also seen a dry month.  I think it comes down to the rain having come in storms of torrential rainfall which dumped large amounts in some places and nothing at all in others.  If the official recording stations have been in places that got hit by the heavy rainfall, this would give an imprecise view of the overall picture.

It is also worth noting that here the year total to end August is exactly 100% of the LTA total for that period, which would give the impression that rainfall had been normal in this part of the country.  But that would be entirely misleading because the figure was substantially affected by the very wet February (275% of monthly LTA) which was followed by weeks of desiccating NE winds which turned the ground from a quagmire to bone dry, combined with 5 months of below average rainfall (Apr-Aug here has given 59% of LTA for those months), resulting in an agricultural drought.

This all just goes to show that averaged statistics (whether averaged over space or time - or both) can give a misleading impression if local and temporal variations from the average are not taken into account.  It all reminds me of the joke that someone with his head in an oven and his feet in a freezer is, on average, perfectly comfortable.

 

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Must be pretty localised because the South East England regional total has it the wettest August since 2015 and about 148% of the August average.

I agree with the other posts from the SE. We could see storms over the Downs inland, my sister in the New Forest reported flash floods on a couple of occasions in August but it stayed bone dry here along the coastal strip. The lawn is still showing bare patches but I think it will come round. 

Brian in Hign Wycombe posted a rather complacent post in mid-August about having no more need to water the garden when I was still pouring large quantities onto ours, and continued to do so until just over a week ago.

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Sounds like opposite of here where it wasn’t warm but was definitely wet. A mediocre summer would be a very flattering description for the season just passed for this location compared with LTA or what would count as a decent summer up here. Disappointing and underwhelming throughout. 

Perfectly describes the Summer over here too. Sunny first 3 weeks of June and with some nice thunder at times, but it went rapidly downhill in the last week of that month and hasn't recovered since. 

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What precise area does the South East England regional total cover? It does look as though there have been some considerable variations in rainfall across it, as we only had 59% of the local LTA in August, and I think that 'fairweather' posting from Essex has also seen a dry month.  I think it comes down to the rain having come in storms of torrential rainfall which dumped large amounts in some places and nothing at all in others.  If the official recording stations have been in places that got hit by the heavy rainfall, this would give an imprecise view of the overall picture.

It is also worth noting that here the year total to end August is exactly 100% of the LTA total for that period, which would give the impression that rainfall had been normal in this part of the country.  But that would be entirely misleading because the figure was substantially affected by the very wet February (275% of monthly LTA) which was followed by weeks of desiccating NE winds which turned the ground from a quagmire to bone dry, combined with 5 months of below average rainfall (Apr-Aug here has given 59% of LTA for those months), resulting in an agricultural drought.

This all just goes to show that averaged statistics (whether averaged over space or time - or both) can give a misleading impression if local and temporal variations from the average are not taken into account.  It all reminds me of the joke that someone with his head in an oven and his feet in a freezer is, on average, perfectly comfortable.

 

 

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Before this thread dies off, next years summer will be in the new decade. I would like to see others opinions on this. If we take 50's ,60's , 70's etc , all have had differing summers in each decade, the sixties were cooler, seventies some hot some cool. In my judgement the nineties had the best of the summers with the noughties more of a mix, and since 2011 maybe a bit worse than the previous decade ?

So what will this new decade bring? cooler more unsettled summers ? Hotter and drier ? With the sun going to sleep , will we start seeing changes?

Before this thread dies off, next years summer will be in the new decade. I would like to see others opinions on this. If we take 50's ,60's , 70's etc , all have had differing summers in each decade, the sixties were cooler, seventies some hot some cool. In my judgement the nineties had the best of the summers with the noughties more of a mix, and since 2011 maybe a bit worse than the previous decade ?

So what will this new decade bring? cooler more unsettled summers ? Hotter and drier ? With the sun going to sleep , will we start seeing changes?

One thing which is certain is that by this time next year, the Met Office is likely to have published all of the official 1991-2020 averages which may well eventually replace the current 1981-2010 averages that are currently used for reporting just about all of our various statistics with the notable exception of the CET and possibly the odd other thing, where the even older 1961-1990 averages are still used for officially reporting that.

Given the current levels of warming, I would expect the 1990-2020 average temperatures to be on average, higher than than the 1981-2010 and since the summer of 2020 brought us just average temperatures here in Edinburgh when that is taken against the 1981-2010 averages, I would therefore expect that summer to actually be cooler than average if that was taken against the 1990-2020 averages.

What I might end up doing when those 1991-2020 averages are eventually released is to report an unofficial comparison with those 1991-2020 averages when I'm reporting the various statistics on this forum for this part of world, just to see how that compares with those anomalies as compared with the older 1981-2010 averages as I am reporting them just now.

That should at least help to build up a food indication over time, of how our temperatures, etc. have actually changed in more recent years.

 

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What I might end up doing when those 1991-2020 averages are eventually released is to report an unofficial comparison with those 1991-2020 averages when I'm reporting the various statistics on this forum for this part of world, just to see how that compares with those anomalies as compared with the older 1981-2010 averages as I am reporting them just now.

That should at least help to build up a food indication over time, of how our temperatures, etc. have actually changed in more recent years.

 

Worth doing - I look forward to it.

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I agree with the other posts from the SE. We could see storms over the Downs inland, my sister in the New Forest reported flash floods on a couple of occasions in August but it stayed bone dry here along the coastal strip. The lawn is still showing bare patches but I think it will come round. 

Brian in Hign Wycombe posted a rather complacent post in mid-August about having no more need to water the garden when I was still pouring large quantities onto ours, and continued to do so until just over a week ago.

Thanks for the affirmation, DEW.  I'm still pouring large quantities of water onto my garden, and at least one plant has died because I forgot to water it before I went on holiday in August.  A honeysuckle plant has just dropped most of its leaves prematurely, and I hope I'm not too late to save it.  But I'd better stop before this turns into a gardening thread...

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going by the SEPA rain gauge 2 miles away this 'summer' averages 218% of the average which we you consider the start of June was great shows how wet the last 10-11 weeks of the season was.
quite similar to last year in that it declined month on month but managed to be wetter still.

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