UK Weather - Summer 2024

[Simon Culling]

Storm Lilian was not quite as bad as expected, with the wind gusts generally below the anticipated levels. Highest gust on the Met Office network was 72mph at Capel Curig in an exposed location in North Wales, but quite a few more 'standard' sites did record 60mph+ and this is unusual for Auugust in the UK. Quite a few trees were felled in northern England and the storm did lead to the cancellation of a number of shows + events, even into the weekend. Marquees do not do well in mean wind speeds of 30-40mph!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn7l668r548o

The weather remained unsettled and rather cool over the weekend, but we should see a warming trend this coming week, but as has been the case all summer, the east of the UK and especially the south east will see the best of the sun + warmth.

The CET for August was 17.3°C (+1.5°C) up to the 24th and the EWR was 39mm up to the 23rd which is just 47% of the monthly average.

[Orion]

Hope the weather is good for your Bank Holiday today, Simon

[Simon Culling]

Hello Orion. Here in Tiverton, the weather for Bank Holiday Monday (26th Aug) was not too bad. A few showers overnight had cleared by dawn and the usual cumulus development limited sunshine to intervals in the morning, but much of the cloud faded away in the afternoon to give long sunny spells and a maximum of 21°C. So, overall, not bad. The best of the weather was in the SE of England with plenty of sunshine and a high of 23-24°C in and around London. Further north it was cloudier with rain at times in the north + west, particularly in Scotland + N Ireland.

The warming trend is continuing this week with southerly winds ahead of a front trying to push into the UK from the west, but it will stall and die out in situ. As high pressure builds in from the SW towards the weekend, the forecasters are confident we will have a warm and dry start to September (and Autumn). The position of the high will be important, and early indications are that it may retreat a little westwards next week which would introduce cooler and fresher air from the NW. I will take warm + dry for a few days, though.

[Simon Culling]

The warm weather duly arrived this week and the temperature topped out at 30.1°C at Cambridge NIAB on Wednesday 28th August - this is the eighth day this year that at least one official site has recorded 30.0°C or more here in the UK. The warmth was mostly restricted to the eastern half of England as much of the rest of the nation was under a waving cold front that was reluctant to move east. It has now done so and we are into cooler and fresher westerly air, but it has been a pleasant day here in Tiverton today (Fri 30th Aug) with scattered cumulus and plenty of warm sunshine. Time now to enjoy this before the Autumn sets in.

Another push of warm air will arrive from the south this weekend, but it looks a lot more unsettled with rain and/or showers, with some thunderstorms. This will persist into early September.

The CET for August was 17.1°C (+1.3°C) up to the 29th and the EWR was 48mm up to the 28th which is 59% of the monthly average.

[Simon Culling]

The Met Office have issued their report for the UK climate for both August 2024 and the summer as a whole.

August was, averaged over the UK, slightly warmer than average, but sunshine was spot on the mean. It was wetter than average, but this hides big regional differences between a dry SE half and a very wet NW half.

The final CET for August was 17.0°C (+1.2°C) and the final EWR was 49mm which is only 59% of the monthly average.

The summer of 2024 as a whole was deemed to be the coolest since 2015 with a mean about 0.2°C below average - this means the perception will be that it was a poor summer because it wasn't much warmer than average. However, the reason it was not so good was that the first half was wet and dull and the second half could not make up for this bad start.

Met Office summary of both here:

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/n ... since-2015