Summer Summary

September and as the last of the crops are being harvested from the fields, my thoughts turn to  rainy days, darker evenings and windy nights so a prefect time to reflect on summer 2011.

Cloud cover at St Michael's Mount, Cornwall, August 2011

The Met office have hit the headlines over the last week by stating that this has been the coldest UK summer since 1993, its also been very wet in many parts of the country which has to be a good thing given that we had an unusually dry (and warm) spring. 

Here in Hawley the mean temp for August was 16.6 degrees which is about where we have been over the last five years, but July and June were notably colder.

But its the lack of sunshine that has made this summer so poor and affected the temperature, the met office has said that the UK has had 76% less sunshine than a typical British summer! 

On a positive note the start of  September has shown how warm it can still get when the sun breaks through the oppressive cloud cover, with 27.9 degrees recorded on the 2nd and 26.1 recorded yesterday, but that's it as this coming week will really feel autumnal with lots of rain and high winds forecast.

A rare blue sky, Falmouth, Cornwall, August 2011

So what does all this mean for the coming winter? well it will be highly unusual to get a third succesive colder than average winter but this summer has followed the pattern of the last two so another winter with a spell of bitter weather has to be expected, my guess at the moment is that like last year, the really cold weather will hit late November but will be back to average by Christmas, but who really knows??

            www.t7own.co.uk/Hawleyweather.html