Most of the country suffered the coldest September in 14 years, forecasters revealed.
In its monthly summary Met Eireann said the temperature never rose above 20 Celsius anywhere – the first such occurrence in more than 30 years.
Average monthly air temperatures were around half a degree below normal at some southern weather stations and it was the coolest September since 1994 almost everywhere. Forecasters said they were unable to predict the weather over the winter months but the Met Office in Britain claimed temperatures are likely to be above normal over much of Europe, although not as mild as last year.The summer washout seeped into the first half of September, with Dublin stations recording their usual monthly level of rainfall within the first six days.
This also brought the stations’ annual totals for 2008 above the amount normally recorded in a full year. Dublin Airport’s downpour of 43.5mm on the 5th was its highest level for September since the station opened in 1941, while torrential rain on September 9 and 10 caused widespread flooding, especially in the south and west.
The British Met Office says that temperatures this winter will be above average, but the average they are using is calculated using temperatures from 1971 to 2000.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080925.html
Pity they don’t define what they mean by “normal”. Didn’t they also claim the temperatures over the summer months where above normal by using a 150 year average instead of the usual 30 year one?
Yes and in Switzerland September was even 1-2°C below average. This morning I can even see the first snow at altitudes as low as 1200m (3600feet)
But this is only weather, not climate as we all are told over and over again
As I live in Northern Ireland, I can vouch for this. We’ve had bad flooding on two occasions, with the first time resulting in a paramedic arriving at our house on a tractor (looking for another address, thankfully!).
The summer was a complete washout. We had some warm weather in May and since then it’s been dismal. It rained most days and the temperature never really got high and summer just seemed to stall. This week it has started to get rather wintry too and we’ve had a few fires to keep warm.
I heard the other day on the BBC weather forecast that this winter will be “mild”. I’m thinking it may end up rather bitter!
But can we trust the data? Has anyone photographed the weather stations?
😉
@John Phillips:
It is absolutely important to inspect any sites that contribute to a public claim like this. We might find they are on pavement and the actual temperature should be even lower.
Colder than last year…
If you follow this link, they’re saying that it’s likely that this winter will be colder than last year, across the UK, and across Europe
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/seasonal/winter2008_9/
– although still above the 1971-2000 average
In Geneva, we had the 40th coldest september for 145 years:
“A Genève, avec une température moyenne de 14.1 degré (-1.0 degré par rapport à la norme 1961-1990), ce fut le 40ème mois de septembre le plus froid sur une période de mesures de 145 ans.”
http://www.meteosuisse.admin.ch/web/fr/climat/bulletins_actuels/retrospective/flash200809.html
September Temperatures
It’ll be interesting to see how the September temperatures come out
– from the AMSU satellite info, it looks like September has been the warmest (relatively) month of the year so far, with anomaly of around 0.2C
– still slightly colder than last year though
It’ll be interesting to see how the temperature map out for the rest of the year…
Here is a site that has recorded the building of an new summit station and restaurant on Mt Snowdon in North Wales.
http://blog.snowdonia-active.com/
There are some stunning photographs, but the main reason for the link can be found in this extract:
“The redevelopment of Snowdon’s summit building has coincided with some of the worst summer weather Wales has experienced. According to the Met Office, the total mean rainfall for Wales during May-July 2007 of 502mm was twice the average and the highest since records began in 1914. And the figures for June/July this year are also well above normal with a rainfall figure of 141mm for Wales during July. Imagine what it’s like working in twice the normal amount of rain at the top of Snowdon where the topography means you can expect around 4000mm a year anyway!”
Of course, the Met Office make no comment as to the reasons for such atrocious conditions, but what else would you expect from them?
On 21st April 2008
“Despite steadily rising temperatures snow has continued to prevent Snowdon Mountain Railway from taking workers to Snowdon’s summit. However, today the train couldn’t even reach the snow-line. It had to stop below Clogwyn owing to winds gusting up to 50 m.p.h. A few workmen set off walking to look at the condition of the snow with a view to possibly ‘tracking down’ a machine from the summit to dig out the line.
For camera crews and reporters on a press trip organised by the National Park, the high winds meant they had to observe the snow and cloud covered summit from a distance. Addressing the media, Carillion’s Regional Director, Meirion Evans described the late snowfalls as “unbelievable” and said: “It’s been very frustrating for the workmen, getting up in the early hours and heading up the mountain but being unable to reach the top. I’ve huge admiration for them. There are 12 weeks of work left to do.”
Snowdonia National Park Chief Executive, Aneurin Phillips, had some good news from the Welsh European Funding Office. They have extended the deadline to early Autumn for completing the building and drawing down the £4.2 million grant funds.
Last Friday, winds were averaging 85 m.p.h. at Clogwyn gusting to 113 m.p.h. around lunchtime. On the Beaufort scale winds in the range 73-83 m.p.h. are described as Hurricane Force. But these figures are eclipsed by the 132 m.ph. gust recorded on February 25th this year; very likely the highest wind speed recorded at Clogwyn this decade.
The “Elephant in the room”, look you boyo!
John Phillip-Good question, where are the UK stations?
An example of good adult learning- I just googled it. Now just got to learn how to put it into a number cruncher!
Eyeballing the list seem to be airports-possibly RAF.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/
John Philip(s)
Can we trust the data?
Probably not – are you volunteering to go to Ireland to document their stations for the SurfaceStations project?
Didn’t they also claim the temperatures over the summer months where above normal by using a 150 year average instead of the usual 30 year one?””
No.
I’m no great fan of the UK met office, but their assessment of the summer temps was spot on. In the context of the last 30 years, 2008 was pretty much an average summer. If you look further back it was a warmer than average summer. For exampe only 2 years in the 1960s were warmer, i.e. 1967 and 1969.
The trouble is people have become acclimatised to much warmer summers in the past decade or so and so an average summer seems cool.
Re: John and Dee
I jhave looked at the UK Met office site to see the locations of the weather stations that they sue for collating information. I could not see a reference to them so I have emailed asking where I could find that information. Will let you know if I get a reply.
Here is some information on the main weather stations in the republic.
http://www.met.ie/about/weatherobservingstations/default.asp
The UK data needs investigating. We’re one huge UHI. Also the CET recording stations have moved numerous times, and this is not very well detailed to the public. It takes a lot of investigation to find out what has been going on. Incidentally anyone wanting to track a good measure of UK temperatures in realtime can do so here http://www.climate-uk.com – this is run by the respected Philip Eden and updated daily most of the time.
Not to mention seeing how the outliers fit with the trend … http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/gistemp_station.py?id=621039760004&data_set=2&num_neighbors=1
Here’s the full sentence from Irish Met Office “Mean monthly air temperatures were near normal generally, but were around half a degree below normal at some southern stations and it was the coolest September since 1994 almost everywhere. At no station did the temperature rise above 20°C during the month, the first such occurrence in September since 1974.”
Which has me scratching my head – temperatures near-normal and coolest since 1994? Go figure.
http://www.met.ie/climate/monthly-summary.asp
PS I see Killkenny on February 13th reached 15.9C – the highest February value since records began there in 1957
😉
Western Europe has had in general a much cooler September when compared to previous years. But on the other hand, Eastern Europe has been noticeably warmer, so it all balances out. We have to take a look at the upcoming Sept. global temps. Clearly the 10-year trend is downward.
But this will change in November as a new US government will skew the data to show a rapidly warming world, no matter what themometers may say and how much snow we’ll have to shovel.
And, as I’ve said countless times, expect Gore to become the next Enviro-Czar.
The next Admin is poised to seriously overreach.
Terry S,
Europe is quite big. If you factor in Eastern Europe, it might be a little milder than normal this winter (hut not MUCH warmer than normal, as predictions have previously claimed).
September in Donegal has been good and well in keeping with my lifelong estimate of the month.
It has certainly turned cold now – my subjective nose poked out the door last evening could detect frost though it never came to it.
I am heartened that they admit they can’t forecast the winter – they have trouble enough on a day to day basis.
So, the global temp seems to be getting back to high levels? I’m not really surprised since la nina (finally) faded away, but on the other hand I was expecting the aerosols and sulfates fom the volcano-somewhere-north (just can’t remember its name) to cool things quite a bit.
This is the reply from the Met Office.
Makes it rather difficukt to question any dat or weather station evidence as done in USA by Anthony’s team!
Dear Denis
Thank you for your email.
As our station network is constantly changing and updating , so we do not keep a current station list under the public domain. If you wish to tell me your location and what data you require i will find the closest station to you.
Kind Regards
Sara-Jane
re: clique2 It seems that those are just a sample.
Frtom their site it says…
“No allowances have been made for small site changes and developments in instrumentation. MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT QUALIFIES AS A SMALL SITE CHANGE.
Station data are only updated after the full network and quality control has been carried out. This usually takes around four to six months.”
Could all be perfectly legitimate. Perhaps I should ask them if they are aware of the problems exposed by Anthony’s surveys in America and if they are confident that such issues do not apply here.
Oh no, Europe has lowered CO2 levels too far and bitter cold will freeze it over for years to come. Man has tinkered with earth’s normal balance and adjustments. It’s so cold now that the inner core of the earth is cooling at a rapid rate.
It’s all too funny that man thinks he is in control of anything.