UK Weather - Summer 2019

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NZstorm
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by NZstorm »

Looks like a fairly cold atmosphere across the north of England on the 12th and SST would be relatively warm. Good conditions for waterspouts.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by Simon Culling »

Indeed it was, NZstorm. In fact, the air was cold enough in depth to promote some showers over the warmer seas around our coasts - something we would normally associate more with the other 3 seasons rather than summer. This tweet gives a forecast sounding for NW England for midnight 12th/13th August and there were quite a few showers in that area (incl. Liverpool + Manchester) overnight into the 13th.

https://twitter.com/MattHugo81/status/1 ... 9472777216

Another quite deep low (978mb) took up residence to the west of Eire yesterday (16th Aug) and produced a very wet day for most of the UK. I was in Tiverton, Devon, and it rained all day - that fine drizzle/rain variety that makes you very wet when out in it. Over 20mm fell in my part of Devon with double or triple this on the higher ground of Exmoor + Dartmoor. An improving trend over the weekend as this low fills and moves away to the northeast and a ridge of high pressure builds from the SW. We could have a nice dry and sunny week to come here in the south - and not too hot either.

EDIT: SST's in Liverpool Bay are currently 16-17°C and up to 18°C at some of the coastal sites.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The weather has slowly dried out over the last few days, but the heavy showers and scattered thunderstorms did continue until Monday in some parts. High pressure is now building from the south and as its axis shifts a little to the east, we will draw more of a southerly flow and it will warm up later this week and into the weekend - we could see 30°C reached in the SE over the late August Bank Holiday weekend.

The CET for August was 17.1°C up to the 19th and the EWR was 77mm also up to the 19th, which is exactly on the monthly average.

An annual survey into the survival of snow patches on the UK's highest ground has been conducted towards the end of August since 2008 and this year has found only 8 patches left and probably unlikely to survive until the first real snows of the autumn come in Oct/Nov.

https://medium.com/@theiaincameron/2019 ... 2530230baa
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The weather has duly warmed up over the last few days with wall to wall sunshine over most of England + Wales from Thursday - and extending into Scotland at the weekend. Temperatures have risen as a result and reached a high of 30.7°C at London Heathrow on Saturday. Yesterday (Sunday 25th August) was even warmer with 30°C reached over a wide area. The highest maximums were:

33.3°C at London Heathrow
33.1°C at RAF Northolt
32.7°C at St James Park, Kew Gardens + Chertsey Abbey Meads
32.5°C at Wellesbourne Airfield (Warwickshire)
32.4°C at RAF Benson (Oxon) + Writtle (Essex)

The warm and sunny weather is set to continue until midweek, although a few thunderstorms are likely from Tuesday, particularly in more western and northern parts. After that, it is still looking predominantly dry for the south, but quite a bit cooler.
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by spwill »

We have some of that very warm weather here in Munich. Yesterday finished with Cb clouds forming around Munich and plenty of distant lightning We had a noisy thunderstorm overhead here for a couple of hrs after 10pm.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by Simon Culling »

spwill, looking at the synops, the maximums for Munich Airport for Saturday (24th) were 27.8°C and for Sunday (25th) 26.7°C.

Here in the UK, the hot and sunny weather persisted into midweek with the maximum temperature on Monday (27th) being 33.2°C and for Tuesday 33.4°C, both recorded at London Heathrow Airport. Some nasty storms developed on Tuesday afternoon over more eastern parts of England and especially in the NE, with reports of hail up to 30-40mm. Following the storms cooler air has spread into the country with showery rain for many areas on Wednesday, although very little was seen in the SE of England. It was still quite warm in the east of England on Wednesday (28th August) with a high of 27.0°C recorded at Santon Downham in the county of Norfolk.

This video appeared on the BBC News site and shows how wet it was late on Tuesday afternoon where a local cricket club were raising money for charity by playing for an extended period. They had to play on through the wind and rain - you have to feel sorry for them! Blunham is in the far NE of the county of Bedfordshire.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-englan ... rd-attempt

It is cooler today (Thurs 29th) and this fresher (and more comfortable) air from the NW will persist over the UK into and through the coming weekend with further rain at times in more northern areas - indeed, Friday into Saturday could see 50-100mm in western Scotland. It will be mostly dry in the south and still pleasantly warm.

The CET for August was 17.4°C (+1.5°C) up to the 26th and the EWR was 80mm also up to the 26th, which is 104% of the monthly average.
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by spwill »

Thanks Simon. It has felt quite hot here for us after NZ Winter. I see cooler air moves down onto UK /Europe next week. We are heading south into Italy , not so cool down there.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

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Cooler air gradually spread south over the last few days of August and particularly on Saturday (31st) as a cold front moved east across the UK. I was in Tiverton (Devon) on Saturday and it was muggy and cloudy during the morning before we had half an hour of rain around noon (briefly heavy) and the cloud then cleared quickly to give a mostly sunny afternoon. However, despite the sunshine, it was noticeably cooler and fresher with an afternoon maximum of just 18°C - the same as the morning.

The cold front had got rather stuck over Scotland on Fri/Sat with pulses of rain running NE along it - one of those 'atmospheric rivers'. This gave a very wet period to western Scotland with some large totals in the 48 hours to 18:00GMT on Saturday (all sites near sea-level):

124mm at Achnagart
104mm at Kinlochewe
53mm at Glasgow (Bishopton)

spwill, Italy is still looking very warm at the moment - many places had maximums north of 30°C on Sunday.
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The final CET for August was 17.1°C (+1.3°C) and the final EWR was 87mm which is 113% of the average. This gave an unusual combination of a warmer and wetter than average summer month.

Summer (June-August) as a whole was also warmer and wetter than normal, but most of the rainfall was in the Midlands and northwards - many parts of southern England were on the dry side. Furthermore, a couple of major rainfall events have distorted these figures. For me, in the south, the summer was warmer and drier than normal with plenty of sunny days.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/p ... statistics
Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by Simon Culling »

Overall summaries for the UK can be quite deceptive at times and the figures for August 2019 are no exception, particularly for rainfall totals. As the anomaly map below shows, many parts of the south and east had well below average rainfall, whilst the north and west had above average - with parts of the NW of England well (200%+) above. The averaged figure for the month for England + Wales is given as 121% as compared to the same period of 1981-2010.

My experience from being in both Hythe + Tiverton throughout the month was for a warm and generally dry month with most of the rain falling on just 3 days.
August 2019 Rainfall Anomaly. png
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Simon Culling
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Re: UK Weather - Summer 2019

Unread post by Simon Culling »

The Met Office have produced a couple of good reports on two significant weather events in the UK during the Summer of 2019.

Firstly, the record maximum temperature recorded on 25th July 2019:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/c ... atwave.pdf

Secondly, on the heavy rainfall at the end of July:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/c ... infall.pdf

The site that recorded the highest temperature (Cambridge Botanic Gardens) also produced a news item on the days events:

https://www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/cambridge ... mperature/
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