UK Weather - Summer 2014

[NZstorm]

Quite a good cb blow up over NW France atm and crossing the channel into SE UK.

[Simon Culling]

The clump over the SE produced a fantastic shelf cloud display Steven across much of Kent, but I cannot find a reproducible photo. It was textbook structure.

Another storm grew out of Ac Cast yesterday evening (Friday 18th) from 9pm onwards and produced another great lightning display as it got dark. Much of it was in the clouds, but there were a number of cloud base crawlers as well and plenty of rumbling thunder. The raindrops were massive, indicative of the early stages of maturity. It rumbled away slowly to the north, but the lightning was visible for an hour after the thunder stopped being audible.

It was muggy into this morning with a Fri/Sat overnight low of 18*C and plenty of high base storms developing over the western side of England. The sun has broken through this afternoon and the temperature is rising, so I am hopeful of some home grown boundary layer stuff later this afternoon.

EDIT: The highest temperatures on Friday were in the SE of England with 32.3*C at Gravesend (Kent), 32.2*C at Writtle (Essex) and 31.8*C at St James Park.

[Manukau heads obs]

i saw a very good photo of the shelf cloud on FB
looked like straight out of the mid west!
also photos of funnel clouds

[Simon Culling]

The thunder activity continued over the weekend, but was more localised. On Saturday the suggested widespread severe storms did not develop during the day but one supercell formed near Oxford producing some impressive gust front videos and quite a bit of tree damage in the west of the city. It also produced golf ball sized hail in the village of Tingewick further to the north. On Sunday there were some high local rain totals in East Anglia from slow moving storms with upwards of 60mm in Norwich and on Canvey Island and some local flash flooding.

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2014 ... e-weekend/

The lightning animation at this link (which covers much of Europe) is interesting!

[Simon Culling]

It has remained warm and sunny over most of the UK and with east or north easterly winds (high pressure has been centred over Scandinavia) the highest temperatures have been in the west and far south. Yesterday (Thurs 24th July) Scotland, Wales and N Ireland recorded their highest temperatures of the year with 29.4*C at Kinlochewe (Wester Ross) and Achnagart (Highland), 29.3*C at Porthmadog (Gwynedd) and 27.6*C at Magilligan (Co Londonderry) respectively. The days highest temperature was 30.3*C at Bournemouth Hurn Airport on the south coast, but a few showers and storms were triggered by the heat and local convergence over the far SW of England.

[Simon Culling]

Yesterday (Friday 25th July) was warm again over the UK with the highest temperatures in Scotland and more western and southern parts. 29.4*C was reached at Cromdale in the Highlands (and 28.8*C at nearby Aviemore), 29.1*C at Blackpool Airport, 28.7*C at RAF Brize Norton (Oxon) and 28.4*C at Carlisle (Cumbria).

Some decent storms developed over the north of London at lunchtime and drifted south westwards into central southern England in the afternoon. They produced some loud thunder but also a significant temperature drop in places affected by the rain, e.g. London Heathrow Airport:

EGLL 251120Z 09008KT 040V110 9999 SCT041 27/14 Q1017 TEMPO TSRA
EGLL 251150Z 07007KT 010V120 9999 FEW045CB 26/14 Q1016 TEMPO 4000 +TSRA
EGLL 251220Z 36004KT 300V090 9999 SCT044CB 26/14 Q1016
EGLL 251250Z 08014KT 9999 5000SE TSRA FEW005 SCT040CB 18/16 Q1017 RETS RERA TEMPO 4000
EGLL 251320Z 14008KT 9999 5000W -SHRA VCTS SCT014CB 19/16 Q1017 RETS RERA TEMPO 4000 TSRA

South Farnborough airfield recorded 18mm from the short storm with the temperature dropping from 26.7*C at 2pm to 18.9*C at 3pm.

[Simon Culling]

Last of the hot days yesterday (Saturday 26th July) as a more westerly flow has been establish for Sunday. Top temperatures were well spread yesterday with maximums of:

29.9*C at Cavendish (Suffolk)
29.5*C at St James Park (central London)
29.3*C at High Mowthorpe (N Yorks)
28.8*C at Cranwell (Lincs), Boscome Down (Wilts) and Thorney Island (Hampshire)
28.0*C at Cardiff Bute Park (S Wales)

CET for July is 18.1*C (+2.1*C) up to the 26th and the EWR was 45mm (72% of average) up to the 25th.

It should remain reasonably warm in the south of the UK for the coming week with a few showers, but more unsettled further north. After 3 lovely sunny days to start the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow it has been wet and cool this weekend - I expect the marathon runners appreciated this!

[Simon Culling]

The warm weather has continued, although it has been a little cooler since the weekend - max temperature on Monday was 25.3*C at Church Lawford (Warwicks) and for Tuesday it was 27.5*C at Thorney Island (Hants). Monday saw a cold pool drifting SE over the SE of the UK and the nearby Continent with some potent storms developing over East Anglia and SE England before dawn and giving some high local totals (up to 50mm in an hour) and a heavy hailstorm to Brighton (on the south coast) which caused a lot of flooding and transport disruption. There are some good photos on this link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... oding.html

More showers and thunderstorms tomorrow with the potential for another 'supercell' across the Midlands.

[Simon Culling]

Final CET for July was 17.7*C (+1.7*C) making it the eighth warmer than average month in a row. The EWR was only 53mm or 85% of average.

It has remained warm in the south into early August, but anyone watching the Commonwealth Games from Glasgow will see it is much cooler and wetter up there in Scotland, with plenty of showers and rather windy. A low (998mb) has moved across Eire into W Scotland today (Sunday) continuing this theme, although it has been dry and quite sunny here in the south - up to 25*C again. 84mm fell on Dublin Airport in the 24 hours to midnight on Saturday.

Saturday (2nd Aug) was showery over most of the UK with more thunderstorms and hail up to 25mm reported (and photographed) in Evesham (Worcestershire).

It looks OK for the next few days in the south, but looking more unsettled later in the week with another low pushing up from the south - this could engage some warm air from the Continent giving us a thundery aspect.

[Manukau heads obs]

I am amazed at how much warmer the northern hemisphere sea temperatures are above normal at the moment
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/climate/i ... bal&c=ssta
scary

[Simon Culling]

Hello Brian. The northern hemisphere SST's have been above average for some time now and the map you linked shows this clearly. One of the effects of this will be to help the seasonal melt of the Arctic sea ice which is heading for a near record low this summer. The UK has seen eight consecutive months of above average temperatures and this has been the general picture for Europe as a whole. As I have said before this will increase convective precipitation come the autumn and winter when the sea will be warmer than the land.

This trend has continued into August with the CET being 17.2*C (+1.0*C) up to the 4th. The EWR is currently 14mm up to the 3rd - the monthly average is 77mm.

The media have been busy writing rather alarmist headlines and predictions about the fate of Hurricane Bertha as she moves east across the Atlantic to be in the vicinity of the UK by the weekend. By this time the system will have transitioned to an extra tropical depression and will not be a hurricane. The models are not good at predicting the evolution of these systems but if it follows the expected path it will deliver a lot of very warm and moist air to our shores and this will likely deliver plenty of rain to some.

[Janos]

Id heard on the local news that the sea temps off parts of Cornwall are around the 19deg mark.
Certainly considerably warmer than what I remember the sea temps being off the chilly Otago Peninsula.

[Janos]

The other thing that has really surprised me whilst living in Cornwall is the very high humidity experienced. Working outdoors Ive never sweated so much thinking back to my 49 years in Dunedin I must admit this has really surprised me...the humidity that is. The gardens down this way are spectacular and we can easily grow stuff out doors that would struggle back home in Macandrew Bay...another surprise.

[Orion]

I knew that Cornwall had a very favourable climate for gardening but had not realised about humidity: do you have any % figures ?

[Manukau heads obs]

but Dunedin is not known for its humidity (with so much high land up wind)
and the cold currents that come up from the sothern ocean there dont change temperature much from winter to summer

[Janos]

but Dunedin is not known for its humidity (with so much high land up wind)
and the cold currents that come up from the sothern ocean there dont change temperature much from winter to summer

Your bang on there thats why this Dunedinite struggles with the constant high humidity. Sadly I dont have any figures but I lose litres most days.!

[NZstorm]

Id heard on the local news that the sea temps off parts of Cornwall are around the 19deg mark.
Certainly considerably warmer than what I remember the sea temps being off the chilly Otago Peninsula.

Dunedin climate is more like Scotland due to cold sea temperatures. But inland Otago has a climate that can't be found in the UK. Over 2000hrs sunshine average per annum for example.

[spwill]

I think the general weather patterns over UK tend to help the climate by producing a lot of southwest flow which is a mild direction. NZ climate is sunnier with a shorter Winter.

[Simon Culling]

CET for August was 17.2*C (+1.2*C) up to the 7th and the EWR was 27mm up to the 6th (35% of the monthly total). It has been wet over the eastern and more northern parts of the UK today (Friday 8th August) with 50mm reported in 1 hour in Cambridgeshire. A thunderstorm brought the England v India test match to an abrupt end mid-afternoon as the outfield became a big puddle.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-be ... s-28713677

The warm core of air from ex Hurricane Bertha is now well across the Atlantic and is expected to seed a small but active low to the SW of the UK as it engages the jet stream and then sweep NE across the southern half of England to give us a very wet and windy Sunday - this storm has the potential to be quite nasty, but the Met Office are still being a bit coy about the details.

I am not sure about comparisons to the Dunedin climate with the UK because despite their similarities the climate of these two parts of the world appear quite different from my readings of your observations on this forum - and a most interesting read they are to.

[Janos]

Id heard on the local news that the sea temps off parts of Cornwall are around the 19deg mark.
Certainly considerably warmer than what I remember the sea temps being off the chilly Otago Peninsula.

Dunedin climate is more like Scotland due to cold sea temperatures. But inland Otago has a climate that can't be found in the UK. Over 2000hrs sunshine average per annum for example.

The sunshine hours are low by comparison. The spells of warm weather seem to last longer than the maritime climate of Dunedin although Cornwall is classified as extreme maritime and consequently the max temps are lower and the mins higher than alot of other parts of the UK. The notable differences from my experiences are the humidity, length of weather periods i.e warm and cold spells.

[Simon Culling]

An area of convectively induced precipitation moved north across the eastern side of England on Friday night into Saturday morning giving another 15-30mm of rainfall quite widely and became stuck over north Scotland during Saturday with some particularly high rainfall totals in the Northern Isles (especially Orkney + Fair Isle). Rainfall figures for the 24 hours to 0600GMT on Sunday 9th August were:

136.8mm at Fair Isle
91.0mm at Lerwick Observatory
72.2mm at Baltasound

The depression spawned from the remnants of Hurricane Bertha is currently (1100GMT Sunday 9th August) over the top end of the Bristol Channel (Glocs/Worcs border) at 990mb and curving NE to be at the forecasted position of the middle of the North Sea (to the east of Aberdeen) by 0600GMT on Monday and at 973mb central pressure. Quite a lot of convective rain and thunderstorms mixed in with this system today and the winds are picking up in the SW. The worst of the rain and wind is likely to be tonight and tomorrow morning in NE England and E Scotland.

[Simon Culling]

A lot of heavy rain here in Milton Keynes yesterday, although the convective nature is reflected in local rainguage totals of between 15-35mm. A squall line developed on the southern flank of the depression in the early afternoon and passed through here with 20+ cracks of thunder and hailstones averaging 10-12mm and two were measured at 15mm. They were mostly spherical and of clear ice, but a few were cigar shaped! They made quite a clatter as they fell.

The depression slowed down as it curved NE up the N Sea and was at 976mb just off NE Scotland at 1200GMT today (Monday). The Met Office prediction of very wet (and windy) weather in the NE of Scotland was very accurate with 4" of rain on the coast and considerable flooding in the Elgin area. Rainfall totals for the 24 hours to 1200GMT on Monday 11th August were:

104mm at RAF Lossiemouth
82mm at RAF Kinloss
62mm at Tain Ranges
54mm at Altnaharra.

I expect there was a lot more over some of the west facing slopes. Flood report from the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-28739164

[Nev]

Here's an amazing pic…

'Plane takes off in front of twister' - Stuff

[Simon Culling]

It is an interesting picture, Nev. There has been some debate here in the UK as to whether it was more a work of Photoshop rather than a genuine picture, but there was certainly a funnel cloud reported from the general area at the time. The report was from just to the north of Lougborough (which is about 10km to the SE of East Midlands Airport) of a long almost vertical funnel cloud and it was witnessed by quite a few people, but whether it was close enough to the airport for this photo to happen is another matter.

Quite a few funnels clouds have been observed recently with at least 11 seen over England alone on the 14th and 15th August as the UK sat in a very showery (and cool!) NW flow. Also 3 waterspouts were observed - 2 off Jersey and another off Sark, both in the Channel Islands.

CET for August up to 15th was 16.4*C (+0.4*C) reflecting the recent cooler weather. The EWR has risen to 76mm up to the 14th which is 99% of the monthly total.

[Manukau heads obs]

that will be a very zoomed in photo, making the background seem closer and bigger than it actually was