On Aug 18, 10:15*am, "Col" wrote:
"John Hall" wrote in message

...





In article
,
Nick writes:
Looking at the models, which seem to indicate no further spells of
settled weather before the end of the month and a risk of some very
poor days next week, it looks like high summer (July, August) 2011
will be yet another poor one, the fifth on the trot, and summer 2011
the third in the last five I would perceive as below-average (though
summer overall in 2009 and 2010 was "saved", if you will, by June).

However looking at longer term weather records, e.g. Trevor Harley's,
it seems that the recent run of average-to-good summers from 1989 to
2006 was perhaps the aberration and a summer like 2011 is closer to
the average than one thinks.
snip

My memories of some pretty dire summers in the 1960s suggest that back
then this summer would have been viewed as average, or perhaps even a
little above. And the 1950s, which I was too young to remember clearly,
may have been even worse, at least as regards rainfall amounts (with the
notable exception of 1959 - which I /do/ remember - and to a lesser
extent 1955).

Even the 1970s and 1980s, which the exceptions of 1975 and 1976, for the
most part were little if any better.

Indeed, although 1983 was a very good summer.
It has already been mentioned that the 1989-2006 run of summers has
rather 'spoilt' us in our perception of what an 'average' summer should
be like from a climatalogical perspective. I've heard comments like
'this year is the 5th poor summer in a row', but is it? Apart from the
horrendous 2007, I don't think it's been on the whole too bad.
In addition, a substantial run of average/poor summers might just shift
the public perception back to something more realistic.
--
Col

Bolton, Lancashire
160m asl- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree with all that and even in 2006 you could not convince
late middle-aged people that recent summers were better than when they
were very young, but they were. This may be due to selective memory
of particular fine days or spells and is part of the very human need
to erase bad memories and preserve and even enhance the good ones but
it doesn't make for good climatology.
Some of the summers in to 50s were dreadful, 1954 in
particular and even at the age of 11 I thought it was not what it
should be. 1959 and to a lesser extent 1955 were brilliant but there
was not another reasonable summer until 1964 and that had a pretty
poor June.
I think the good summers of 1989-2006 will return fairly soon,
given the overall warming, but there's more to it than that.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.