Guest essay by Paul Homewood
For those of us living in the UK, the glorious summer has been much in the news. We seem to have spent half of it listening to the BBC telling us about temperature records that might be broken, and been bombarded with heatwave warnings from the NHS.
But how exceptional has it been? The Met Office have now published their figures, and the answer seems to be “not very”.
Temperatures
UK mean temperature was 15.16C, making it the 9th warmest summer on records going back to 1910.
Perhaps significantly though, maximum temperatures only ranked 11th. The 19.71C recorded this year was well down on the 1976 figure of 20.96C, which still remains by far the highest number on record. This certainly raises the question, just how much the UK temperature record is influenced by UHI, as the minimum temperature graph (and particularly the trend line) suggests.
Central England Temperature Series
As the map indicates, the largest anomalies were in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the smallest in the South East. The effect of this on the CET series is quite startling, as the summer only ranked 44th warmest, going back to 1659. There were many warmer years prior to 1900. Indeed, while the hottest summer was 1976, the next hottest was 1826!
5-Year averages remain close to the long term, (1660-2013), mean.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that the YTD CET is still running about 0.9C below the 1981-2010 mean, and the year as a whole is on target to be the second coldest since 1996.
Precipitation
Much of the summer has been dominated by high pressure systems, so it is no surprise that rainfall has been low. Nevertheless, it is only the 13th driest summer since 1910, and the trend in recent years remains one of wetter summers. Indeed, rainfall in recent summers has been at similar levels to the period of 1910-60, which preceded a much drier interlude culminating in 1995.
Meanwhile YTD rainfall totals are not remarkable.
All in all, I suppose you could say it has been just another British summer!
References
All data from the UK Met Office
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries
Is it only me? Or have the warm-mongers been really quiet for the last few months?
Highest temperature of 34.1 deg C at Heathrow and Northolt on 22nd July – I would be interested to know what effect the local environment (tarmac/aircraft/high volume vehicle movement/buildings etc etc) had on this reading.
Perhaps the MO applied some of their statistical magic to the readings 😉
Jimmy, you will hear a lot more when the next climate jamboree begins in Stockholm. I guess they will now say that global warming not only causes extreme weather but also boring weather.
Interesting. My wife spent four weeks in July in Scotland and England. She reported not getting out of her southern hemisphere winter clothes for the first two weeks. However, the Tasmanian Over 60s St Ayles Skiff team received a silver medal and my wife the personal congratulations of [Princess Anne]. Now isn’t that more interesting than boring old weather? 😉
Looking at the rainfall map, UEA-CRU really have had a local drought (for local climate-change scientists).
After the wash out of last year, anything would seem warmer! The result, outstandingly ordinary weather!
I live in the “micro-climate” of southern Hampshire , the Solent. Our summers until 2006 were pretty much predictable, warm May , unstable and often humid June, warm-to-hot July, variable August and a warm and sunny September. In our area this was much more reliable and warmer than many other parts of the UK. In amongst that were often periods of low pressure for a few days and considerable rain but on average very nice summers….. THEN….. 2007,2008,2009,2010,2011,2012 …. six summers nothing like any in my lifetime here, colder, wetter and far less sunny. 2013 was much more like the norm before that run of 6 strange summers. So for us here in the South it just felt like summers as they should be…. Other micro-climates in this part of the world ( south Devon, Cherbourg penisular ( France ) and the channel islands ) have experienced much the same.
‘As the map indicates, the largest anomalies were in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the smallest in the South East. The effect of this on the CET series is quite startling, as the summer only ranked 44th warmest, going back to 1659.’
When was Scotland and Northern Ireland added to the Central England Temperature series? I don’t think they were included in the 1650’s.
It has been a largely pleasant spring and summer in the SE with just enough rain to keep the crops happy. I’m growing tomatoes and peppers and chillies outside but may have to take them indoors before all are ripend.
I do have a feeling (rather than a thought) that these highs are going to persist through the winter and bring in cold airs from the North and East ushering in a colder than average winter much like last year and heralding the collapse in global temperatures I have been expecting for years.
Predict a ‘barbeque summer’ until you get one, eh?
1826 was a corker by all accounts – widespread drought, half of the West Riding or Yorkshire burning, and, in Scotland, heat and thunderstorms. From the Times, June 11, 1826: “The heat still continues excessive, the thermometer has for some time been above 80 in the shade, and during the past week has sometimes been even so high as 86.” That’s for Inverness!
Australian weather reports have been constant crowing about ‘Warmer than average’ and the ‘[insert number here] warmest month on record). It’s sickening, no mention of the global warming stall, merely meaningless local very short term anomalies.
Agree completely with Johnny old boy. I live just outside London so only 80-90 miles apart but identical summers. Was so nice just to have some warm sunshine, nothing exceptional but after the last few years it was great.
Bloke down the Pub
When was Scotland and Northern Ireland added to the Central England Temperature series? I don’t think they were included in the 1650′s.
Sorry, I was a bit ambiguous there. What I meant was that anomalies in England were lower than in the UK as a whole.
Therefore, CET figures were even less exceptional.
“…All in all, I suppose you could say it has been just another British summer!”
Yep – certainly felt that way to me (living in Bedfordshire, UK). We had a some very nice warm weather through most of July/August, but looking out the window this morning I see September is an unsurprising grey, rainy affair (rained for most of this past weekend, too). I certainly feel that despite the BBC’s increasingly desperate attempts to paint the weather (any weather) as ‘unusual’ or ‘record breaking’ the actual experience of it feels anything but to the vast majority of the UK population.
Our British summers have always been a bit schizophrenic; a few days of very weather here, followed by a day of torrential thunderstorms there, etc, It’s not ‘unusual’ and it’s certainly not ‘extreme’ – despite the BBC’s repeated attempts to report it as such. Still, no doubt the CAGW Propaganda Wing of the BBC Department (aka The Met Office) is busy preparing the script in advance of autumnal floods – and, of course, as ‘evidence’ of that all-important ‘weather weirding’ they all seem so enthusiastic about.
Jokers, all. They really should find something better to do with their time (and our money).
I live in south Oxfordshire – just about as far as you can get from the sea in England. We have had a lovely summer and enjoyed the more reliable days of sunshine. We even planned BBQs based on weather forecasts 3 and 4 days out!
I am extremely grateful to have had a summer like the ones that I remember.
Wasn’t this the first summer since the Met Office predicted that our summers would now be cooler and wetter – because of global warming, sorry, climate change, sorry climate disruption?!? Deliciously ironic following previous years repeated, epically wrong, forecasts of BBQ summers and droughts.
If we are supposed to be experiencing global warming, how can places so close to each other (the UK is not that large) have anomalies of +1.5 to 2.0 at one location and -0.5 to 0.5 in another?
Yet only in June the Met Office held a meeting over the UK’s “disappointing” weather over recent years. The Met Office had been interpreted by the media for the UK to expect cooler, wetter summers. Right on cue and lovely summer. The rule of thumb is to expect the very opposite of what the Met Office forecasts.
Just remember the folks for AGW talked of fine grapes and even oranges for the UK. LOL.
Also remember the AGW folks told us to expect more drought in the UK yet 2012 was the wettest since 1910. Just how many times are these people allowed to get it wrong and continue to be rewarded with faster and more expensive GIGO computers?
“Looking at the rainfall map, UEA-CRU really have had a local drought”
Living just across the city from them I would agree – we’ve only had a few short duration showers since end of spring, and the grass is parched! I’ve watched many storms approaching on the Met Office rainfall radar, but they always peter out just before reaching us. Some even seem to split in two and then reform the other side…
As far as temperatures go, I certainly don’t remember the many stifling hot nights we experienced a few years ago. So yes – nothing remarkable.
After last summer’s atrocious weather, this year has seen a return to the sort of summer we wish for and remember. In the 60s, I spent most of the summer lying around an outdoor pool, sandwiches in my duffle bag and my drink sunk to the bottom of the pool to keep cool and would cycle home in time for supper with fingers and toes like shrivelled prunes from so much swimming. I don’t remember many wet or cold days. Last summer, I don’t recall wearing anything less than a t-shirt and jumper and my vegetables were a disaster. We had a fabulous week at the end of March and a bit more in May, but that was it. Dire. So this year has been a welcome change (and my onions are huge).
If you keep saying “BARBEQUE SUMMER!!” over and over every year, eventually you will be right…
I was a believer in global warming about 10 years ago, with just the slightest niggle of doubt in my mind – if temperatures are 0.8°C higher than 100 years ago, how accurate were thermometers back then? My understanding was that only recently have thermometers been reliably accurate to within 0.5°C… and, how can we verify the accuracy of the readings from 100 years ago? Anyhoo, I let that ride. Then I saw Al Gore’s infamous film, and was hooked; we were bad, bad people. I then set about (albeit rather half-heartedly) trying to find how I could have some effect upon humanity’s nastiness. As this required research, I (internet) researched. The first question was “How does CO2, a minor gas in the system, have such a dramatic effect upon the atmosphere’s temperature?” I asked this question on various sites, pro- and anti-, and was surprised by the response. NONE of them could give a satisfactory answer, the anti- sites gave rather poor explanations, but were dismissive; the pro- sites almost immediately became nasty – in some cases, very, very nasty, with advice to self-harm and suicide, as well as the usual ad hom remarks, especially when I questioned their response: “Because it does!”. Obviously, these folk were desperate to get me on-side – NOT! The conclusions I came to were that the alarmist sites do not tolerate anyone who is not totally “on message”. This made me suspicious, so I continued researching, to reach the sort of conclusions that most people on this site agree with – the whole AGW story is a SCAM! The recent UK summers merely reinforced my opinions.
Here in the UK, the Summer of 2013, is being lauded as a great (ie warm, dry and sunny) one, but it was only July and August that were ‘great’. April and May were cold and cheerless, and June wasn’t much better. The reality is that our collective memory of weather events is very short and this gives the alarmists fertile ground to propogate the myth that CAGW is spawning ‘extreme’ weather on a regular basis. We rely on the vigilance of WUWT and similar sceptic sites to demolish these claims as they arise by providing the true facts. Keep up the good work!
Grumpy:
You conclude your post at September 9, 2013 at 3:36 am by saying in parenthesis
Careful. WUWT is an American blog. Americans tend to be prudish and unfamiliar with the British ‘Carry On’ type of humour. Anyway, boasting of one’s personal attributes is unseemly 🙂
Richard
An unusually good summer in a somewhat less unusual colder year
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-Dmax.htm
Well here in Spain it was forecast to be the coldest summer for 200 years. Not having lived here for 200 years I cannot tell you if the predictions came true but it was the coldest summer here I can remember!
“…listening to the BBC telling us about (high) temperature records that might be broken, and… bombarded with heatwave warnings from the NHS.”
The Met Office, et al. should be bragging rather than complaining. Within a decade everyone will be longing for summers like this one. Here’s a quote we’ll see within 10 years:
According to Dr. (climastrologist, du jour), a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, “Within a few years children just aren’t going to know what summer is.”
And of course the only cure will be a massive tax.
MattN says:
September 9, 2013 at 4:02 am
“If you keep saying “BARBEQUE SUMMER!!” over and over every year, eventually you will be right…”
I hear London has a brand new communal BBQ apparatus called the Walkie Scorchie.
I had forecast a good summer for this year from 4 years back, and said that July in particular would be hot.
In a couple of years we will start to see the first rumblings of CO2 causing global cooling. A few voices at first, then a crescendo. A few below the fold articles in the NYT and away we go.
In the meantime, all the Europeans (including the UK) better be saving up for a very cold coming winter. Since we all know computer models are 95% accurate, all I see is blue on the prediction maps for Dec – Feb for that area of the world.
Glad you all had a pleasant summer. Payback is coming. Good luck.
Old’un says:
September 9, 2013 at 4:35 am
[…]April and May were cold and cheerless, and June wasn’t much better. The reality is that our collective memory of weather events is very short and this gives the alarmists fertile ground to propogate the myth that CAGW is spawning ‘extreme’ weather on a regular basis.
————————————————————————————————————————
Exactly.
If people have already forgotten, in September, how miserable the late spring / early summer was because of a couple of months of pleasant weather since then what chance is there of the doomsayers being challenged when they tell us that something is “the hottest / wettest / most windy in 100 years”?
People just accept that they must be right because they’re the record keepers.
It’s been a nice summer – a little “too hot, too quickly” at times, leaving little time to acclimatise before it cools again, but that’s what’s always happened in UK weather.
I was in Scotland about three weeks and it felt decidedly chilly. That didn’t stop people in Edinburgh dining out bare-armed in the evening air. Tough, tough, tough!
It’s global weirding. The averageness of the temperatures is unprecedented. It’s been the summeriest summer anyone alive can remember and it’s only going to get worse!
It looks like weather to me.
The map looks to be proving UHI to me.
A few of you will know I take an active part in unravelling Met Office matters.
The Met Office information shown is technically sloppy. Take the temperature map, notice the remarkably fine detail… odd how poor stations influence this where station change has to be taken into account. Quite a few of these have not been published as part of the UK surfacestations project. (creates too much noise where they are normally published).
Paul mentions “high pressure” which is fair enough since the Met Office “believe” that one. (Paul does good work, not a criticism). The problem is what is not explained by bald “pressure”.
The pressure is irrelevant, their words are a symptom of misunderstanding an artefact of their own understanding. There was frequent unusual air flow with east winds and little prevailing airflow from the Atlantic, typically a flow from the south-west. In essence continuing blocking conditions as bring cold winters and brought the cold late spring. [1]
Consider bookmarking the following resource
A few days ago I put together all the Eumetsat geostationary satellite European weather videos in a single list of links. The summer 2013 period is at the top as June, July and August videos.
This is a visual gold mine.
daedalearth.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/collated-eumetsat-european-monthly-weather-videos/
A minder… all that complexity in one small part of globe earth, one video is the time for one monthly dataset point. And we know much?
1. A useful concept is likely to be the late Marcel Leroux’s work and his concept the MPH and this cold polar air movement can be seen in the videos, although this is more commonly clear during the winter season. I now have copyright permission to use some images from elsewhere showing a good example of a recent MPH and that will be a blog article when I am clear to write it up. A change of behaviour seems to be the start of Autumn.
Leroux wrote about the traditional view of ridges of high pressure, persistent lows etc. and how these are explained by airflows from the Arctic and a consequence of averaging. Unfortunately his work is mostly paywalled or in very expensive books ($100+).
Was he correct? It is worth entertaining. We are only today starting to actually see how air moves, still limited by the small number of imaging satellites and at a limited range of wavelengths.
@R Babcock
…In a couple of years we will start to see the first rumblings of CO2 causing global cooling. A few voices at first, then a crescendo. A few below the fold articles in the NYT and away we go….
That’s true! I saw some CO2 in a lab once, and it was very cold. There was ice on the container it was kept in. It’s obvious that if you keep pumping that sort of thing out you will chill everything around in a large radius. The science is settled.
Can I have my Climate Professorship now?
richardscourtney: you should see my walnuts too…………
[but I didn’t grow any melons this year as I didn’t think they’d ripen.]
I live in East Anglia: we’ve had a very dry year with just two or three periods of rain for a couple of days, to keep our trees and gardens (and farmers) from keeling over. The grass has looked extremely parched for much of the summer and it was very hot for the last few weeks. Earlier in the summer we had a long cool spell (several weeks) with no rain, but very dull grey skies – this included all of June iirc.
Reports from round the country (and evidence from watching the racing on tv as I do daily) show that most of the rain this year – some of it very heavy – has been in the west of the country. This is usually the case, but it’s been much more noticeable this year.
As we have been saying for years, nothing remarkable is happening. The runaway greenhouse effect is nonsense. The tide towards reality and away from green advocacy has turned.
Return to your lives.
In October 2003, the U.S. Pentagon released a controversial report, “An abrupt climate change scenario and its implications for United States national security,” that explored how global warming could lead to rapid and catastrophic global cooling, and in 2010, it was being postulated that Global Warming was going to cause global cooling. All bases are covered: whatever – whatever! – happens, it is all the fault of Anthropogenic(-morphic?) Global Warming.
living in scotland and spending much time outside fishing it has certainly been a good summer,not as good as the summers i remember as a teenager in the eighties,but a good one.nicely interspersed with enough rain to keep the farmers happy once the temperature finally started rise in the spring.
one thing is for sure,every good summer i can remember has been followed by by a proper winter.
The Pompous Git @ 1:49 am:
I hope your wife enjoyed her visit. However, I must take you to task if by ‘Priceless Ann’ you mean Princess Anne (NB Anne with an ‘e’). I lived in Gloucestershire for some years and she is very well thought of locally. She is involved in lots of charities and works very hard, so I don’t think much of your use of that derogatory term.
I normally enjoy your posts but not this one.
I’m loving the commentary from the UK posters a lot. The diversity in this forum never ceases to amaze and amuse me.
Needless to say the Met Office forecast “near to below average temperatures” in their 3-month outlook at the end of May.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/send-in-the-clowns/
Jimmy Haigh. says:
September 9, 2013 at 1:24 am
Is it only me? Or have the warm-mongers been really quiet for the last few months?
No it’s you Jimmy. They have been going mad trying to build up for the IPCC release.
I wish someone would go look at the weather stations at Heathrow and Northolt (both airports) as I was sick and tired of the Met/BBC telling me that record high temps were being recorded there during our miserably ordinary Summer this year.
The first half of the “summer” was cold, compared with the average, the second half warm.
And the trend? The warming is bigger than we thought!
</sarc>
“Much of the country is on a heatwave alert, at the moment – a Met Office Level 3 Watch is in force in the south-east of England”. So began an item on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on 18th July.
There was an interview with Professor Virginia Murray, who is Head of Extreme Events and Health Protection, Public Health England, and also a Contributing Lead Author of the IPCC SREX report on Managing Extreme Events and Disasters. She warned: “For us, summer is wonderful, as you point out, but the real concern is we are not used to heat in this country. We are not, as you point out, aware of the risks.”
What advice to individuals would Public Health England give, during this Extreme Event? “The most important advice is to stay cool yourself, drink plenty of cool drinks, but look out for others. Take care of the most vulnerable, take care of those who are very young, the elderly, those with chronic illnesses who may be particularly vulnerable to the heat, and, really, to protect those as far as we can. And to make sure we reduce the health impacts on them, and the possible worrying risk of increased deaths”.
The BBC’s Justin Webb asked Prof. Murray how often the Heatwave Watch System is invoked. “It’s invoked every year, since we had the really worrying heatwave in 2003, which affected much of Europe”. And, apparently: “We went to a Level 3 last summer, between the Olympics and the Paralympics, for about 10 hours”.
I’m just so glad most of us survived this dreadful Extreme Heat Event, and can look forward to a nice cool and safe winter.
Annie said @ September 9, 2013 at 9:27 am
My wife enjoyed her visit very much; it was only the second time she had visited UKLand. She was most impressed that Anne, sorry about the dropped “e”, knew quite a lot about Franklin and our wooden boat school. Apologies for calling her priceless: “Of inestimable worth; invaluable.” I take that back as I would hate to offend you.
I gave up watching BBCNews weather forecasts this summer when one particular bonehead presenter kept referring to a ‘one day heatwave’ every half hour update. According to the Met Office there is no official definition of a heatwave, so I guess they can just make it up as you go along and be as alarmist as they want with pointless health warnings to scare folks.
When I lived in Lincoln, we had water restrictions in 1965. We had arrived from Cyprus in Feb 1963 and I never got out of my sheepskin coat that summer, until I climatized. But it was a lovely summer. Came to Sydney in Nov 1965, and they had water restrictions here. So lap up the sunshine but usually when it is hot more storms develop. It is warm here too in Oz, but I have known bad storms to arrive and frost in late Sept and October. So let’s keep our fingers crossed.
I spent 33 days in Britain from the 25th April, the thawing out process is nearly complete.
In 2012, after a dry spring, the UK had a hosepipe ban and the Met Office’s £33M computer predicted a dry summer. It turned out to be one of the wettest summers in living memory and the wettest June on record.
On 18th June this year, Prof Stephen Belcher (Met Office Hadley Centre) predicted a decade of wet summers. “The 20-year cycle began in 2007, with six of the past seven summers being wet, and this trend will continue” he said. “Wet summers are more likely for the next 5 to 10 years. This is due to Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation – and climate change may be intensifying the cycle. I am excited about this research, it’s a new thing that we really didn’t know about.” Dr Adam Scaife (Met Office Hadley Centre) also quoted “In 2012, like the previous few summers, warm North Atlantic conditions brought milder temperatures and rain. The same pre-conditioning is there again this year. This summer will be slightly wetter than average.”
Well, Met Office, here are the embarrassing statistics for this years wet summer in the UK for East Midlands/South Lincolnshire. . . .
From 18th June to 31st August 2013 (75 days) . . . .
2 days of heavy rain (23 & 29 July – the latter came with spectacular thunderstorms and hail).
4 days of moderate rain.
18 days with very light showers or fine ‘mizzle’ at some stage – but nothing to worry about.
6 cloudy days, hardly much sun shining through, but DRY.
45 glorious days of complete sunshine with no rain whatsoever.
Summary: 69% dry, 24% very slightly damp, 5% wet, 2% washout.
Footnote 1: UK Businesses rely on Met Office predictions. 2012′s washout summer saw retailers spending precious capital on garden furniture, BBQ food and equipment – which hardly sold. This summer, paddling pools and cooling fans were like gold dust – everywhere was out of stock whilst shops couldn’t shift their stockpiles of umbrellas and raincoats.
Footnote 2: There also has been hardly any breeze throughout this glorious UK summer – so a big kick in the teeth for those with a vested interest in bat-chomping bird-slicing eco crucifixes.
(Above first posted in WUWT ‘Consensus, what consensus?’ Sept 3 2013)
we’re around solar cycle 24 maximum. the summers are expected to be decent for 2012-2015
About 6 weeks of very warm weather and the rest OK or a little dry and cold (around springtime).
My observation: It has been a wonderful year for the butterflies. This implies that UK butterflies evolved for ears like this… they can’t be too uncommon as butterfly numbers have been in decline so the boom is from a low base.
My comment: SHH! Don’t jinx it. Some of us are on holiday now.
GeeJam
On 18th June this year, Prof Stephen Belcher (Met Office Hadley Centre) predicted a decade of wet summers. “The 20-year cycle began in 2007, with six of the past seven summers being wet, and this trend will continue” he said. “Wet summers are more likely for the next 5 to 10 years. This is due to Atlantic multi-decadal oscillation – and climate change may be intensifying the cycle. I am excited about this research, it’s a new thing that we really didn’t know about.
Perhaps he should have read my post in January!!
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/facts-about-the-amo/
Paul Homewood
Thanks for the link Paul. Agreed, they obviously didn’t read your post. Another good example of, as always, how our tax-payer funded MET Office prefer to have a rough guess on how to create their own savoury tomato and minced beef sauce served on a bed of pasta – without first looking up any tried and proven recipes for spaghetti bolognese whilst also ignoring the advice of a qualified and experienced Italian chef. And if they mess it up, the inedible food is not deducted from our bill.
Similarly (my personal bug-bear), I yearn for a time when our politicians show complete astonishment as they stop, research and learn for themselves just how little atmospheric CO2 there actually is!!
Keep up the good work.
The Pompous Git:
Thank you.
I live on the Northern Tablelands of NSW, very green in New England region, but our temps rarely go above 30 C., and winters are cold, with dramatic drops in temps once the sun goes down. Can reach 10 below in some areas, the higher you live (we are 3,500 ft above sea level) the warmer it is generally as cold and frost flow downwards. (Can be 5C difference) So to make predictions to carte blanch every micro climate area is not accurate. For example my girlfriend lives in the valley only 2 km from me, she will say ‘it’s pouring here’ or ‘ snow did not settle long’ yet higher up we got no rain and snow did settle. Just 2 kms away. Anyway enjoy an Indian summer. Because it will get cool again.
Try the exercise for the UK which originally opened Anthony Watt’s eyes in the US: group temperature records and trends by population density of the counties where the recording stations are located.