Friday 21 December 2012

November 2012

The fact that I am writing this review 0n Dec 21st shows that there is not much to say about November other than wet, cold and depressing!
The only good thing to say is that its the last month of Autumn and with that my thoughts are wind and rain banished to be replaced by frost and snow as we head into winter proper.
As I am writing this 3/4 0f the way through December has that been the case? well no, but it has been cold and certainly colder than last year.

Hawley stats:
Mean Temp:          7.1c (3rd coldest since 2005)
High temp:            16.1c
Low Temp:           -3.4c
Rain:                      59.4 mm (3rd wettest since 2005)
High Wind:            42mph

Eng and Wales stats:
Temp anom:           -0.6c
Rain%                    128%
Sun %                    110%

Friday 9 November 2012

October 2012 summary

October is my least favourite of the autumn months and this year bolsters that view, with the clocks going back that confirm endless dark evenings, muddy fields for dog walking and 25 days of varying rainfall this month has certainly been miserable and cold, -0.5c below the SE average and with only 78% sunshine. Yuk!
But from here things should get more interesting as the weather in November can give good indications of what the winter months may hold.
So goodbye October, don't rush back....

Hawley Stats:
Mean Temp      10.5 ( second coldest since 2005)
High temp:        18.2
Low temp:         -1.5
Rain:                  64mm (highest since 2005)
high wind:          33mph

SE England Stats:
Temp anomaly:    -0.5
Rain %:                137%
Sun %:                  78%

Thursday 11 October 2012

September 2012

The grim summer of 2012 tried to make amends by stretching warmth into the first month of Autumn,  the first half of the month was pleasantly warm and bright with sunshine amounts one couldn't grumble about but typical of this summer it wasn't to last and soon after mid-month the rains returned and the temperatures fell in sympathy.
The sun did shine in Sept
In terms of statistics for the month the most interesting is the mean temperature of 14.0C, this was the coldest September since I started keeping records in 2005 and 0.1 colder than the second coldest which was in 2010.
Why is this interesting? 2010 had the coldest December for one hundred years in the UK, with the first snows hitting in late November so could we be heading for a repeat?
As I am writing this on October 11th there is plenty of excitement on the weather forums about the prospect of a hard winter, more so than I can remember at this early stage of Autumn, and this excitement is being fuelled by medium and long range forecasting models indicating northern blocking which if came to fruition could plunge the UK into an early taste of winter, indeed its entirely possible that some low lying areas of Scotland could see its first snow this month and its not even winter!
Anyway more on this on my next blog early November.
Apple and Lexi happy that the crop has been cut at last!

Hawley Stats:
Mean Temp:            14.0
High Temp:             29.6
Low:                        2.7
Rain:                        40.4 mm
High Wind:              31 mph
Dominant wind dir:  West

SE England Stats:
Rain                          98%
Sun:                          127%                      
Temp Anom:            -0.7

Tuesday 11 September 2012

August & Summer summary 2012

As the shadows grow longer and the daytime heat is hastily overtaken by the cool of the evening gloom, my thoughts turn to Autumn and of course winter, for me this is the most exciting time of the year, colourful displays by mother nature and farmers in fields collecting the harvest lead ones thoughts to frosty winter mornings and snow covered fields and roof tops.

But first how was summer 2012?

I have covered the months of June and July in previous blogs, which just leaves August, my favourite summer month for reasons other than the weather!
August was a much better month than the previous two with a welcome respite from the wave after wave of low pressure systems that characterised June and July ( and indeed spring)
A true (and rare) taste of summer hit mid-month with 3 days of temperatures hitting the late twenties and early thirties, and would you believe some of us were moaning that it was too hot!
The fact that I singled out three days really does highlight what a shocking summer this has been.
Official figures released by the Met Office confirm that this summer has been the wettest for a hundred years And one of the dullest with sunshine amounts much reduced.
When you consider that Spring 2012 was also one of the wettest on record then that is six months of dreadful weather, I blame the hosepipe ban!
So with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and most outdoor events a wash-out (Wimbledon having been very lucky for the most part) Summer 2012 will be one to forget from a weather perspective but at least we will remember Team GB and their stunning performances at the Olympics and Paralympics, imagine how miserable we would all be feeling if it wasn't for them!

Hawley Stats:

High Temp:    33.6
Low Temp:    7.7
Mean Temp:   17.9 (second warmest since 2005)
Rain:               32.4mm (second driest since 2005)
High Wind:     33mph  

SE temp anomaly: +0.9
Rain %                   68

Thursday 16 August 2012

July 2012- not much improvement

Blue sky being somewhat rare this summer so far
The second month of summer only offered a slight improvement over the first, this courtesy of the Jet stream that moved further north than it had been and sat roughly mid-country. The jet stream had a buckle to our South West which was was still allowing low pressure systems to hit us from the atlantic.

A real taste of summer hit around the 22nd with temperatures soaring to the late twenty's and locally even higher and 6 glorious days of zero rainfall!


Mud tracks at the war and peace show, Hop Farm,
Paddock Wood, Kent
This brief respite only served to highlight what a shocking summer we are having in 2012, and despite those high temperatures July was the second coldest since I began keeping records in 2005 (marginally beaten by July 2011 by 0.2C and that was the coldest for quite a few years.

August will have to be exceptional to rescue the summer, and thats not looking likely!


Hawley Stats:
Mean Temp. 16.4
High.             31.1
Low.              7.9
High Wind.    32 mph

SE England Stats:
Temp anomaly: -1.1
Rain %.             176
Sun %                86

Tuesday 17 July 2012

June 2012 and the washout continues.

view from the bottom of my garden
The first month of summer gone and with the first two week of July following the same dismal pattern, what is happening with our weather that is making this summer the worst I can remember?
jet streams affecting our weather
According to the Met Office, averaged across the UK, June 2012 has been the wettest since records began in 1910, the coolest since 1991, and the second dullest since records began (record for lowest sunshine in June is still 1987)




Its all down the the jet stream, the band of high winds in the upper atmosphere that forms a boundary between the cool air in the north and warm air in the south, its sitting to the south of the UK which is not its normal position and is driving wave after wave of low pressure systems that continue to deluge us with rain, and its been like this for three months now!


Here in Hawley I recorded 95.4 mm of rain, the highest total since I started keeping records in 2005, and to confirm the lack of sunshine the mean temperature for the month was a poor 14.5C, some 1.5C lower than my June average, it all adds up to a miserable summer so far.


As I mentioned above, up to mid- July the story is the same with 55.6 mm of rain recorded so far.
There are signs that the jet stream is starting to move north allowing High pressure to build from the south so I am hopeful for a drier (and warmer) final two weeks and a substantially better August to rescue our summer!


June Stats:
High temp: 28.9 
Low temp:    3.8
Rain:          95.4mm
High wind:   37.0mph









Sunday 10 June 2012

May 2012 - cold start hot end.

May started in the same vein as March with cold and damp conditions prevailing until the 17th when warm air flooded the UK from the south and gave us a much welcome taste of summer with a mini heatwave that lasted 10 days. This year so far is proving to be very interesting weatherwise with extremes of temperature, wind and rain in virtually every month!

stunning buttercups
a welcome view after April!
So what does this mean for summer 2012? I think given what has happened so far this year I can see this trend continuing which at some point means another heatwave, but when and for how long (and indeed how often) is anyone's guess.

Stats: high temp.    26.8C
          low temp.     1.3C
          mean temp.  13.0C
          high wind.    32 mph
          rain.              35 mm

April 2012-- wet! wet! wet!

The dry winter and exceptionally dry March has given way to one of the wettest April's since record began.
Here in Hawley I recorded 82mm of rain, to put this into context below is the rainfall amounts recorded over the previous 6 years.

a very wet month!
2006: 38.4mm
2007: 4.8mm
2008: 0.2mm
2009: 22.1mm
2010: 13.5mm
2011: 1.2mm (6 days data missing)

The combined totals of these months is still 2mm short of 2012's which just proves what an incredibly wet month it was, good news for the farmers and water companies though!

Stats: high temp.   18.2C
          low temp.    -4.4C
          mean temp.   8.1
          high wind.    38.0 mph
          rain.              82.0 mm



Friday 8 June 2012

March 2012

cloudless skies
The first month of spring started as February ended with warm sunshine and cloudless skies, a high temperature of 17.5C recorded on the 1st and this was to set the scene for the rest of the month.
With only 11.8mm of rain it was an exceptionally dry month that has forced many water companies to issue hose pipe bans following three dry winters.
water levels low











Stats: high temp: 22.8C
         low temp:  -2.5
         mean:         7.8
         rain:            11.8mm
         high wind:   38.0

Winter 2011-2012 Summary

It's been a while since my last blog and I have decided to do monthly summaries so its easier to compare month for month in future years.
To supplement this I will also issue 'season summaries' so I thought I would start with the winter just gone.
December always brings the most anticipation if you like the prospect of a picture post card Christmas, little children with rosy red faces peering into brightly lit shop windows being briskly pulled away by mothers with fur collars and long scarves laden with bags of shopping, tree lined avenues, branches heavy with snow, lead laden skies that threaten more, and the prospect of arriving home to a roaring fire and a hot mug of soup...
The reality of December 2011 was far different from the picture that I have just described and completely different to the previous year that delivered the coldest start to winter for one hundred years.
There were many weather 'agencies' and hopeful amateurs that predicted 'snow-maggeddon' and although I was broadly accurate with my December forecast, I, like many others, were caught out by just how mild December turned out to be, the mean temperature for the month was 6.6C much warmer than 2010's 0.4C and the second warmest in Hawley since I started keeping records in 2005. ( for information, Dec 2006 was the warmest @ 7.2C) and of course no white Christmas!

So did things improve in January? with a mean of 6.0C it was colder than 2007 & 2008 (7.8C and 7.5C respectively) but again was a mild month overall, five nights mid-month recorded temparatures of -3.4 - 5.9 and that was really the highlights of January.
I predicted February would be the coldest month and indeed it delivered a reasonable snowfall, but it really was a month of two halves. For the first two weeks it looked like that the mean for the month would be below zero, but from mid-month onwards there was a dramatic change with un-seaonally warm temperatures that persisted until month end. Interesting stats: Lowest Temp, -10.3 Highest Temp: 19.8 and the mean ended up 4.3 ( second coldest since 2005)

So there it is, a rather boring winter and actually fairly typical of our winters of the last twenty years, the really cold weather never reached us and stayed in eastern Europe that in some places had the harshest winter for many, many years.



Sunday 5 February 2012

Snow At Last!


Field at the back of my house
Just a quick blog update to post a few pictures.
Apple enjoys the snow
It started snowing last night around 9:15 pm and by this morning I had 8cm (measured from the car roof) not mega amounts by any means but enough to transform the landscape which to me is why I love snow!
Today has seen the temperature just climb above 1C so a slow thaw has set in, which will mean icy conditions as the slush turns to ice overnight.
My road

Things look interesting as we head into the middle of the week as the deep cold affecting Europe will again march towards the UK bringing much depressed day time and night time temperatures so hard frosts and freezing fog will continue to ensure February is, at least until mid-month, a proper winter month!


Burying a car is always fun


Thursday 2 February 2012

Europe Freezes, UK Shivers!

The cold Arctic airmass bottled up over the North Pole for most of the winter has finally been let loose and is causing death and disruption across Eastern Europe with some places having their most severe cold spell for 30 years, temperatures of -20-30 have recorded in many places.
The icy fingers of that deep cold pool has stretched to the UK but thanks to the warm North Sea acting to insulate this island those extreme temperatures are not being experienced here.
severe temperatures over europe
But that doesn't mean that winter has not arrived because it most certainly has. After almost record breaking mild weather so far this winter this weeks temperatures have barely raised the Mercury and has certainly caused a shock to the system!
So,we have the cold but what about the snow? so far this cold spell has failed to deliver for fans of the white stuff, quite frustrating given that the frigid continental air has come from the coldest source and has crossed the warm (in comparison) North sea!
And so to the West we must look for our moisture, warm Atlantic lows are on a collision course with the freezing Siberian highs that are giving us temperatures 4c lower than average so far this month, and where these two systems meet then significant, prolonged snowfall will result, and for the lucky ones, should equal or better December 2010.
The current prediction is that Kent should see the most snowfall but all areas of England are under Met Office yellow alert for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but as usual some areas could get plastered and some will miss out.
Will we get some here in North Kent?..I think so..







Sunday 15 January 2012

Winter to Arrive Late?

The pattern change I mentioned on my last blog has happened with the benign zonal muck replaced by much more seasonal weather.
I have recorded two successive nights of minus 5 temperatures and so far two lovely, cold sunny days with beautiful crisp blue skies.
Apple bathed in late afternoon January sun
The really interesting feature of this current spell of weather is the way in which the major computer forecasting models, GFS, ECM and UKMO have differred so markedly in the pattern evolution, kick started by a long over-due SSW that has eroded (not completely) the Azores high that has given us this mild winter thus far. (another SSW event is forecast but the effects can take weeks to filter down)
A crisp clear sky that only winter can give you
I am now more optimistic than ever that February will be our best shot for a cold and snowy spell (like the good ole days) as many of the building blocks are coming into place for a potent and sustained Easterly or North Easterly which should bring proper snow to the favoured areas.

I often mention how pleased I am with the accuracy of my Long Range Forecast and way back in September I called February to be the coldest and snowiest month and as it currently stands many expert forecasters are calling the same, backed up by the computer models, so If you want, need, desire snow the Siberian express is on its way but its stopping at every station. It will get here but will it be worth the wait?

Wednesday 4 January 2012

12 snowless months

The Christmas lights are packed away for another year, the tree has been unceremoniously butchered and discarded at the refuse tip and the zonal, boring weather that characterised much of 2011 has continued into 2012, the London Olympics and Diamond Jubilee year.
Apple inspects two fallen trees
I'm reasonably pleased with my LRF that predicted a much milder December than 2010 but I, like others are surprised at just how mild it has been, I read somewhere that its been the second warmest December on record!
If you're a cold and snow fan you can't fail to be disappointed with what the first month of winter has delivered but my view is that we have been spoilt by the last two winters and the weather we have had in December is pretty much what we normally have, wind, rain and very little snow.
So into January and the theme continues, the unusually windy conditions I predicted for the second week came yesterday with severe gales and damaging gusts bringing widespread damage and disruption with two people losing their lives due to trees being uprooted, more is expected later today but will not be as severe as yesterday.
I stated in my LRF that a change to much colder conditions will happen around mid-month and it does now look like the pattern that has given us this mild weather could be about to change around that time, so a change is likely that could bring drier and colder conditions but that means frosts as opposed to snow I'm afraid.
Chin up though snow-lovers, February is the month I predicted to be the coldest so lets wait and see.