Latest England Wales rainfall figures
All the talk of a drought recently seem to have evaporated at least for the moment after the thundery rain of last month pepped up the figures. Talk of a drought in what has been a …
Climate
June 2020 – monthly weather summary
Here are the anomalies for the three basic weather elements in June 2020 using the new updated map of the UK with Shetland no longer in a box. Rather surprisingly, Scotland had the highest mean temperature …
Displaying Shetland in a box on maps is now banned by law on official documents
I did wonder why I had to make changes to one of my software applications and realised that it was because the UKMO had changed the map that they use to draw their climate data on, …
Displaying Shetland in a box on maps is now banned by law on official documents Read More »
Chances of 40°C days in the UK increasing
Author: Met Office Press Office 16:00 (UTC+1) on Tue 30 Jun 2020 Towards the end of the century parts of the UK could see 40°C days every 3-4 years on average under a high emissions scenario. A …
Cold May in Australia
I completely missed that Australia saw their coldest May nationally since 2011. Here’s what their Bureau of Meteorology had to say about it:- Australia in May 2020 In brief Nationally, May was cooler than average for …
Record high temperatures in Siberia
There’s a lot of media activity about the recent high temperature in Siberia at the moment. It looks like a record maximum temperature has been set at Verkhoyansk of 38.0°C. A temperature of 38°C would be …
Extraordinary, astounding, absolutely staggering, quite remarkable and uprecedented
I have just written some code to examine the seasonal changes of precipitation across the UK using the gridded data series from the UKMO which now extends back to 1862. I did it because I was …
Extraordinary, astounding, absolutely staggering, quite remarkable and uprecedented Read More »
May 2020 sunniest month ever in the UK
Yes, May 2020 was an exceptionally sunny month with anomalies 42% higher than the LTA across the whole of the UK. Remarkably it was also the sunniest calendar month since gridded data back to 1929 as …
300 hours up
Four stations have now recorded over 300 hours of sunshine so far in May 2020 across IONA, with another one on the cards for today. Still on top is Hurn with 310.1 hours up until yesterday. …
Hurn closes in on record for sunniest May
The sunshine total so far this month is 295.5 hours at Hurn, aka Bournemouth airport, is fast closing in on the May record of 317.4 hours set in 1989. So can it close the gap of …
So you think it’s been dry in the south?
It’s certainly been a dry this spring across many places, and since the middle of March southern England hasn’t seen much in the way of rainfall, but if you take a closer look at bigger picture …
A chance of the sunniest May on record?
There is an outside chance that new regional records will be broken for sunshine in May across some southern parts of the UK. It’s a tall order because May 1989 was an exceptionally sunny month in …
1896 the year to beat for driest May
May 1896 still holds the record of being the driest May in four out of the six English regions in the gridded data set from the UKMO which now extends back to 1862. May 2020 at …
Mid month climate report
Over halfway through May and it looks like this: Temperatures have been a little under average for the month so far particularly in the north, even in the south it’s none been too warm helped by …
It may have been a dry spring up until now but the last year has still been wet
If you look at the regional rainfall statistics for the northeast of England and Scotland for the last year which represents a fairly typical example of precipitation across the whole of the UK, you’ll see that …
It may have been a dry spring up until now but the last year has still been wet Read More »
April 2020 Anomaly Charts
Here are just some a few of the charts the Met Office climate section generated for April 2020. I prefer to use the anomaly charts because anomalies give you a frame of reference that allows for …
April 2020 sunniest on record – but just how do they measure it?
The Met Office yesterday tweeted that new provisional information suggests that April 2020 is now the sunniest on record with 212.5 hours of sunshine have been recorded so far, beating the previous record of 211.9 hours …
April 2020 sunniest on record – but just how do they measure it? Read More »
Vale of York driest place so far this April
The Vale of York stations are top of the table as being the driest stations in the UK SYNOP’s so far this April. Topcliffe has only recorded 0.2 mm of rainfall and Leeming 0.4 mm, and …
A memorable April
The end of a quite spectacular sunny seven days in April, with today and maybe tomorrow to come, across much of the country. The northeast of Scotland saw another widespread frost inland, moderate in places like …
High April mean helped by warm days but held back by cold nights
As is often the case in spring across IONA mean temperatures although bolstered by warm afternoons during the day can be held back by colder than average nights. So far this April mean minimum temperatures [18-06] …
High April mean helped by warm days but held back by cold nights Read More »
Air Frosts: 1 October 2019 – 22 April 2020
These climate stats that I used to produce these charts are based on the 18-06 UTC minimum temperatures as reported in the 06 UTC SYNOP reports. I occasionally miss a report or two, so I can’t …
Which was the driest April?
Again the question “which was the driest April?” depends very much on where in the country you are talking about. According to the gridded data from the Met Office the driest April for the whole of …
Which was the sunniest April?
The question “which was the sunniest April?” depends very much on where in the country you are talking about. According to the gridded data from the Met Office the sunniest for the whole of the UK …
Measuring sunshine accuracy across Europe
Q Is it possible that places with a lower latitude and shorter day such as Schleswig yesterday for example can report higher sunshine values than stations further north such as Kinloss on the same equally sunny …