UK Weather - Summer 2017

[Simon Culling]

Very little thunder + lightning was reported with the line of convergence showers, Richard. Just the odd flash and bang in a few locations. The next highest rainfall total I could find at an official station was 32mm at RAF Lyenham which is in Wiltshire and nearer the NE end of the shower line.

The weather is still unsettled and we have had more fronts crossing the country today giving plenty of rain as another low takes up residence to our W then NW and provides a few showery and blustery days as we head towards the weekend. However, there are some hints in the model output of some drier and warmer weather next week.

[Simon Culling]

The Met Office has not published the full figures for July (CET + EWR) as yet, but the provisional summary below suggests it was warmer and wetter than average. The interesting statistic relates to the sunshine - it was much sunnier in the far north of Scotland (in the Shetland Isles) than in the SW of England, i.e. Cornwall. The summary states that the difference was quite large - 193 hours in the Shetlands compared to just 154 hours in Cornwall.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releas ... land-shine

The weather remains unsettled with showery rain at times and we have a weather warning in place for Wednesday with the Met Office suggesting up to 60-80mm in places in south east England - and combined with a cool northerly wind. A far cry from the record breaking heat in southern Europe!

[Simon Culling]

Tuesday + Wednesday (8/9th Aug) were indeed very wet over the south eastern quarter of the UK with many places recording 20-30mm but up to 50-70mm reported at some sites - this variability was due to the convective nature of some of the rain. Both days were also cool in the rainy areas (with a northerly wind) with max temperatures of only 13-14*C. Not very summer like at all. It should be a little better this weekend and into next week, but only what might be seen as average summer weather.

The final CET for July was 16.8*C, which is +0.7*C above average. The final rainfall figure is not yet available as the page cannot be accessed - nothing new there I am afraid.

The CET for August was 15.5*C (-0.5*C) up to the 10th which makes it the first month for some time to be below average. The EWR was 44mm up to the 9th, which is 57% of the monthly average of 77mm.

[Simon Culling]

I have been in France for the last week or so and departed Toulouse Airport at 6pm yesterday (Sunday 20th Aug) evening where it was sunny (clear blue skies) and 27*C only to land at Luton Airport which was enjoying steady rain + drizzle and 13*C and nearly dark at 8:30pm.

The weather in the UK has remained rather on the cool side and unsettled, although there have been a couple of drier and warmer days - the mercury did hit 25*C on Monday + Thursday last week. The remnants of Hurricane Gert spread over the UK yesterday and brought the rain, but will give us mild tropical maritime air for the next few days and humid albeit quite cloudy weather - we could see 27*C in the SE if the sun shines for any length of time.

The CET for August was 15.6*C (-0.4*C) up to the 17th and the EWR was 52mm up to the 16th, which is 68% of the monthly average.

[Simon Culling]

We have had some unexpected interesting weather in the last couple of days as a flabby low has persisted to our west/north west, with a feed of warm and humid air from the SSW and various troughs rotating around the low. A big area of thunderstorms and heavy rain developed over Ireland (particularly the northern half) yesterday afternoon (Tues 22nd Aug) and persisted into the evening giving 61mm at Lough Fea and around 70mm at Malin Head Lighthouse. This area moved NNE into western Scotland overnight and gave similar totals to the Western Isles (e.g Tiree and Barra) and some flooding was reported

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-41019610

Another of these troughs gave a thin band of Ac Cast stretching from the south coast into the Midlands yesterday evening and as this moved NNE it gave a few showers and some very elevated thunderstorms to the SE of England and up into the Midlands. We had quite a few flashes in the early hours here in MK but only a few distant rumbles and a few spits of rain.

This morning (Weds 23rd Aug) a further cluster of storms developed around breakfast time over the north Midlands and again moved NNE across Yorkshire and into the N Sea by lunchtime with something like 3000 strikes recorded and quite a bit of local flooding. Bramham (in N Yorks) recorded 39.8mm between 10:00 ansd 11:00.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-41024287

[Simon Culling]

The weather improved at the end of last week for much of the UK with high pressure to our south over Europe and we have enjoyed three lovely sunny days in a row from Saturday in England and Wales - all the more appreciated as it was the last bank holdiay weekend of the year. Scotland and N Ireland were more cloudy with some rain at times. It has also been warm with temperatures of 26-27*C and up to 28*C today which could be a record for the late August bank holiday Monday since this holiday switched from early August in 1965.

[Simon Culling]

There has been some confusion at the Met Office over the 'record' temperature for the late August Bank Holiday. They originally claimed it was the 28.3*C recorded at March in Cambridgeshire on 27th August 1990, but later revised it downwards to 27.2*C at East Bergholt (Suffolk) set in 1984, also on the 27th. The reason given was that the 1990 figure was higher than surrounding stations and was therefore deemed unreliable. Hence the new record now being the 28.2*C recorded on Monday of this week (28th Aug). Their blog gives a little more info:

https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2017/08/3 ... -measured/

I am not in the business of dissing the Met Office, but they could help themselves significantly by providing more data to back up this argument. There has been plenty of the normal banal comments on the usual websites about rigging the data but the Met Office (and indeed other similar national organisations) does not help itself with efforts like this. With a rigorous (and published) examination of potential records, they could provide a sterner test for the doubters.

[Simon Culling]

On the 24th August we celebrated the 150th anniversary of the first broadcast of the shipping forecast. Obviously, back in 1867 it was not 'broadcast' in the conventional sense, but following numerous maritime tragedies, regular gale warnings were issued by the then Admiralty. These forecasts were surprisingly accurate and were prompted by the foundering of the Royal Charter off the N Wales coast in 1859. Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy was responsible for setting up the fledgling Met Office and beginning the systematic collection of weather data in near real time and actually posted forecasts in 'The Times' from 1861.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_Forecast

When I was a boy I used to listen to this forecast at lunchtime or sneak a listen at 00:33 via a very quiet playing radio. It gave plenty of pressure readings from which it was possible to draw a rough synoptic map - back then we did not have the internet! I still enjoy listening to it today and at the late hour (on Radio 4) it is always preceded by a wonderful piece of music - Sailing By, composed by Ronald Binge. This piece has been used since at least the late sixties when I listened as a boy.

I am not sure of the complete accuracy of this blog, but it is probably nearer the truth than the scribblings of the PR brigade.

http://www.charlieconnelly.com/why-toda ... -forecast/

[Simon Culling]

The final CET for August was 15.6*C (-0.2*C) which makes it the first month below average since November 2016. The final EWR was 83mm which is 108% of the monthly average.

The summer as a whole was a little warmer and wetter than average but was a tales of two halves - if we include the end of Spring. May and June and into early July were warm and quite dry, but the last 6 weeks became more unsettled and cooler. Sunshine was a little below average.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releas ... to-a-close

[Simon Culling]

An interesting article appeared on the BBC website in early September concerning the digitalisation of the weather records from atop Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK. Routine hourly observations were kept from 1883 to 1904 before the money ran out and a project has been launched to engage the public in transposing the printed records to a database. The cynics amongst us might think that this is just a cheap way of doing this but it is a wonderful record that deserves to be more widely available. The UK is one of those countries that does not have a proper high level observatory despite many sites being available - the usual excuse being a lack of money,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-41166778