On Aug 19, 8:38*am, Adam Lea wrote:
On 19/08/11 01:17, Tudor Hughes wrote:



* * * * *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.

It is because if the weather is good, you are more likely to be out
doing things, enjoying yourself, and thus having a more memorable day.
Sitting indoors reading a book with the rain lashing down isn't the sort
of thing that tends to stick in the mind 40 years later.

The same effect can be observed regarding frequency of snowy winters
i.e. the same people will claim snowy winters were much more frequent
than the climatology data would suggest.

Interesting that, though I do remember some childhood/early-teenage
summers such as 1980 and 1985 being poor, even though, in 1985 at
least, I was outdoors a fair bit of the time. ISTR the latter being
rather like the current one, cool and breezy with light rain at times
but no real deluges.

On the other hand, I have very vague memories of associating very
early summers of my life with a lot of sunshine. Would be interesting
to test that theory - what was summer 1977 like in NW England? I have
vague memories of it being sunny but most people seem to report that
as a poor summer.

Nick