UK Weather - Summer 2015

[Richard]

Good luck getting a decent lightning show Simon

[NZstorm]

breaking news

BBC drops the UK Met office!

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34031785

[Nev]

The strongest contenders apparently being MS's Metra and Meteo (UK-Press/Dutch-NWS)…

'MetService vying for multi-million dollar contract' - NZ Herald

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Good luck to them.
Maybe TonyT should put in a bid as well

[Simon Culling]

Unfortunately we missed all the storm action here in Milton Keynes this last weekend, although we had over an inch of rain yesterday (Mon 24th Aug). Saturday was a warm day with the temperature reaching 30-31*C at many stations in and around the London area and up into the south Midlands and this sparked off some home grown storms in the late afternoon over the north Midlands and northern England with some heavy rainfalls and gusty winds associated with the Cb's. Bramham (in-between Leeds and York) had just over 60mm from two of these storms and the linked YouTube video gives an idea of the strong outflow winds experienced by some.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnMyrMacN6c

Further storms drifted up from France into southern and south western England during Saturday afternoon and evening giving some impressive lightning displays but they did not travel in my direction. A northward moving band of rain on Sunday became electrified either side of me so I seem to have been dealt all the two's and three's for this plume event!

[Richard]

Impressive video,someone forgot to close the shed door before it hit

[Orion]

Gosh that got vicious!

[Simon Culling]

It has dried out a bit in the last couple of days after a wet week of weather. It has turned cooler and the forecast for the first week of autumn is dry but on the cool side as we get a more northerly flow.

CET for August was 16.2*C (+0.3*C) up to the 28th and the EWR was 93mm up to the 27th, which is 121% of the monthly average, reflecting the recent wet weather.

[Simon Culling]

The final CET for August was 15.9*C (+0.1*C) making this the first above average (albeit very slightly) month since May. It should be remembered that the averages used for comparison are for 1961-1990 which will have the effect of reducing the negative discrepancies and increasing the positives as compared to the 1981-2010 averages which are used by the main Met Office. The final EWR foe August was 109mm which is 141% of the long term average, so a rather wet month.

Overall, the summer was a little cooler and sunnier than normal with a small excess of precipitation. The most noticeable thing in my opinion was the lack of hot days. Met Office summary gives a few more details:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releas ... ics-update

[Simon Culling]

Returning to an earlier discussion concerning the heat island effect of London, I have mapped the recorded minimum temperatures for Friday 31st July to illustrate how pronounced this effect can be. The map shows minimums in central London of 10-11*C and as low as 4*C in the suburbs. Further out, 3*C was recorded at Woburn in Bedfordshire and 1*C at South Newington (Oxfordshire). This was a clear night with little or no mist formation as the air was essentially quite dry. There was only a light northerly wind.

For distance purposes, the diameter of the M25 motorway is approximately 50km.