On 20/08/11 11:35, Len Wood wrote:
On Aug 19, 11:38 am, wrote:
On Aug 18, 10:15 am, wrote:









"John wrote in message

...

In article
,
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.

1984 was also good, and ISTR 1982 also being fairly good as well,
though with a not-so-good June (at least in SW Scotland where I was on
holiday for 2 weeks, can't remember the rest of it). 1981 too had a
very good August in the south, though 1985-88 were consistently poor,
very reminiscent of the current spell.

Nick

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An average summer? People's perceptions are many and varied.

I have done an analysis on Plymouth's rain and mean summer
temperatures 1951-2010. Six decades spanning approx my life, although
I have only lived half of it in the Plymouth area.
Previously a decade on the Suffolk coast, a decade in Herts, and a
decade in London.

The analysis is for June, July, and August.
Mean summer temperature 15.74 +/- 0.82C
Rain 190.8 +/- 63.9 mm
More or less than 1 standard deviation from the mean counts as a hot/
cold, wet/dry summer.

Hot summers:
1955
1959
1975
1976
1983
1989
1995
2003
2006

Cold summers:
1954
1962
1963
1965
1966
1974
1978
1980
1985
1986
2002

Wet summers:
1954
1956
1958
1965
1968
1969
1985
1986
1997
2008

Dry summers:
1964
1975
1976
1983
1984
1989
1995
1996
2000
2006

There are 11 cold summers and 9 hot summers. The cold summers are
mostly in the first 3 decades. None in the 90s!
Hot summers are pretty evenly distributed across the 6 decades.
7 out of 10 driest summers in the last 3 decades.
6 out of 10 wettest summers in the first 2 decades.

So summers seem to have warmed up and become drier according to these
stats.

As Tudor points out, some summers in the 50s were rather wet.
And in the 60s they were rather cold.
1954 was both wet and cold, as was 1965.

Perhaps I should do the analysis for school holidays, last two weeks
of July and the whole of August?
Plymouth is not especially reprentative of England, never mind the UK.
However, it is representative of a popular holiday area.

Len Wood
Wembury, SW Devon
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Surprised that 2007 is not in your list of wet summers.

According to the Met Office climate graphs, for the UK as a whole, there
seems to have been a trend towards wetter summers in recent years.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/