Indeed 26c already at my nearest WS Stansted. 

A tad cooler than yesterday so far at the vineyard. I think today will be better in the Midlands and North of London compared with recent days. More of a Southerly flow. 

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A couple of rounded 30s already at 10am. A 36 looks possible today

A couple of rounded 30s already at 10am. A 36 looks possible today

EA has quite a few 31s at 11am

 

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Some 32s but temps seem to  be plateauing somewhat already. We have cloud bubbling up here as well first for awhile. 

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Cavendish 33.4c is the highest 1pm I can see. 

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Whatever happens now, this will be the best August since 2003 here. Hopefully a few sparks over the next few days (though I'm not holding my breath) and hopefully another warm and sunny spell later on would secure it as the best since 1995.

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Whatever happens now, this will be the best August since 2003 here. Hopefully a few sparks over the next few days (though I'm not holding my breath) and hopefully another warm and sunny spell later on would secure it as the best since 1995.

Be very interesting how this August pans out. If this nice weather runs through the August Bank Holiday then I think we should have a nice September.

 

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Be very interesting how this August pans out. If this nice weather runs through the August Bank Holiday then I think we should have a nice September.

 

Indeed. I certainly wouldn't rule out another heat wave in September. Given the current state of things, I'd say the chances of a top five September for warmth are higher this year than in a more typical year.

A hot August BH weekend would just perfectly round off this month, though.

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I used to love hot weather in my younger years. But I really am fed up with this heat now, as it’s just energy sapping, so the days are not useable.  I have so much to do but it’s just too hot.  

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It looks like 31.5°C was the high here today, so that's three consecutive 30°C+ days (it was nearly four, but the 11th peaked at 29.9°C), which is pretty extraordinary for rural North West England. It also makes it the warmest August day up here since 2003. What a remarkable summer this has been!

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It looks like 31.5°C was the high here today, so that's three consecutive 30°C+ days (it was nearly four, but the 11th peaked at 29.9°C), which is pretty extraordinary for rural North West England. It also makes it the warmest August day up here since 2003. What a remarkable summer this has been!

A remarkable summer indeed, and quite possibly the first to have two months above 18C in the CET since 1995. Indeed a kind of hybrid of 2003 and 1995 in many ways. 

A hunch (and a few other things - the SSTA pattern, the phase of the solar cycle, the warming trend, the better state of Arctic sea ice and so on) tells me perhaps we have seen a secular shift this year and we could see several hot summers in the coming decade. And several very mild and possibly dry winters. A dry winter followed by another 2022 spring-summer = 1976 revisited. Let’s see. But Europe has already seen the shift. It just seemed to be muted in Britain by multiple summers of southerly tracking jet and Greenland high.

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A remarkable summer indeed, and quite possibly the first to have two months above 18C in the CET since 1995. Indeed a kind of hybrid of 2003 and 1995 in many ways. 

A hunch (and a few other things - the SSTA pattern, the phase of the solar cycle, the warming trend, the better state of Arctic sea ice and so on) tells me perhaps we have seen a secular shift this year and we could see several hot summers in the coming decade. And several very mild and possibly dry winters. A dry winter followed by another 2022 spring-summer = 1976 revisited. Let’s see. But Europe has already seen the shift. It just seemed to be muted in Britain by multiple summers of southerly tracking jet and Greenland high.

It's all subjective. Personally, and this is my hunch, I actually think we could be in for a cold winter and next summer could be similar to that of 2007, which was the complete opposite of 2006.

We will pay for this prolonged dry spell for sure.

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Looks like the maxima were below forecast again, around 33 seems to be the highest today.

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I used to love hot weather in my younger years. But I really am fed up with this heat now, as it’s just energy sapping, so the days are not useable.  I have so much to do but it’s just too hot.  

Hot weather loses its appeal very, very quickly. I can't wait for this endless, endless summer to end. 

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Hot weather loses its appeal very, very quickly. I can't wait for this endless, endless summer to end. 

The only good news really is that we're losing 3 and a bit minutes of daylight a day, so it gets increasingly harder to sustain the really unpleasant temperatures for very long. Several days with dewpoints in the high teens / low 20s is utterly sapping! And to think, it used to be 17 or 18C DPs that were as high as you would see... it's as if we've all moved a few hundred miles south.

I wouldn't mind as much if it was followed by a 1995/6-style cold spell at Christmas (the last widespread White Christmas in the SE of England with snow falling and settling was 1970), but there are two downsides to that thought: one, it's clearly not going to happen, as it never does and two, if by some fluke it did happen, although I'd be dancing with happiness I know most people would be the exact opposite, for a variety of reasons.

I do wonder, though, whether given the atmopshere's tendancy to get "stuck in a rut", how many more plumes we'll manage to import before it finally becomes cold from the mainland of Europe, as opposed to hot...

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Looks like the maxima were below forecast again, around 33 seems to be the highest today.

It does seem that GFS et al overcooked things for the country as a whole.

However, here it's been the exact opposite - UKV has had a really torrid time of this hot spell, with day after day suffering ninja-increases in forecast temperatures.

This morning's forecast, for example, at 5AM, followed by the same at 5PM:

  

Perhaps it's taking actual readings into account... my station does report direct via the MetO WoW system!

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It's all subjective. Personally, and this is my hunch, I actually think we could be in for a cold winter and next summer could be similar to that of 2007, which was the complete opposite of 2006.

We will pay for this prolonged dry spell for sure.

Theres no karma in weather. Things average out over time of course, but if the average is shifting then, well, they don’t. 

Summer rainfall and évapotranspiration in sub-Mediterranean regions of Europe - North Portugal and Galicia, Gascony, Inland Languedoc, Lyon and Northern Rhône, Burgundy, Valais, Po Valley, inland Balkans and Greece - have not averaged out. They’ve shifted permanently. 

This August the Cicadas are silent in Southerm France and Corsica. So are the evening crickets. It’s a weird experience. They finished their mating cycle weeks early because of the spring heat, and they can’t cymbalise above 36C. Plus of course the worldwide insect decline of the last couple of decades due to land use change, pesticides and disease. So it’s weirdly silent. Scarily, kind of permanently silent. Like the fireflies that no longer exist in most of Europe because it’s too light at night. Or the sea in Corsica which was so warm it was not remotely refreshing - all time record SST of 30.7C earlier this month. Not normal. But further North, in Lyon and Toulouse, they’re clack clacking away. 

Nature doesn’t always make amends; sometimes it just dies.

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Hot weather loses its appeal very, very quickly. I can't wait for this endless, endless summer to end. 

It wouldn’t be so bad if I had nothing to do. If I were on holiday with a nice warm sea to dip into, it would be fine!  32c here again today and I’d be in bed for nine but these past few days it’s been too hot to sleep until after dark. So that doesn’t help!  

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The only good news really is that we're losing 3 and a bit minutes of daylight a day, so it gets increasingly harder to sustain the really unpleasant temperatures for very long. Several days with dewpoints in the high teens / low 20s is utterly sapping! And to think, it used to be 17 or 18C DPs that were as high as you would see... it's as if we've all moved a few hundred miles south.

I wouldn't mind as much if it was followed by a 1995/6-style cold spell at Christmas (the last widespread White Christmas in the SE of England with snow falling and settling was 1970), but there are two downsides to that thought: one, it's clearly not going to happen, as it never does and two, if by some fluke it did happen, although I'd be dancing with happiness I know most people would be the exact opposite, for a variety of reasons.

I do wonder, though, whether given the atmopshere's tendancy to get "stuck in a rut", how many more plumes we'll manage to import before it finally becomes cold from the mainland of Europe, as opposed to hot...

Yes, the one saving grace is the earlier sunset, which allows it to cool down earlier.

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It wouldn’t be so bad if I had nothing to do. If I were on holiday with a nice warm sea to dip into, it would be fine!  32c here again today and I’d be in bed for nine but these past few days it’s been too hot to sleep until after dark. So that doesn’t help!  

Take it from me, a “nice warm sea” loses its appeal when the sea temperature is 30C. Not pleasant. I love swimming in the sea but my favourite swim of the holiday by far was in a spring-fed river in the Corsican mountains that was properly cold. There’s no point in swimming unless it’s at least a bit of a shock when you go in. 

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