Warmest summer in area for 15 years

Was also driest summer since 1976

WELL what a summer we have enjoyed or endured depending on whether you like the heat!

I will briefly this time summarise August before talking about the summer as a whole.

August had temperatures much closer to average with a day time average of 21.7c and a night time figure of 12.4c.

The overall mean of 17.1c was what we would usually expect of this month.

There was much more rain than in the the other summer months but having said this rain only fell on nine days in the month and the total of 56mm was still 10 per cent down on usual.

It was also another dull August as many have been in the last 10 years with just 134 hours of sun recorded or 20 per cent below normal.

The first week of August saw the last of the heat with the warmest day on the 6th of 28.2c.

The 7th saw the last of the warm conditions and after this the Atlantic westerlies took over giving us generally cooler and more cloudy conditions.

Rain fell on nine days the heaviest on the 23rd with 14mm falling and the month saw some very cool nights at its end with just 6.4c logged on the 30th.

Summer 2018 will be remembered for long spells of sunshine and heat which began in late spring and lasted without a break until the end of July.

Nationally 2018 in terms of temperature was joint warmest with 2006, 2003 and 1976 with an overall mean of 15.8c.

Nationally too it was the hottest month for England since the MET Office records began in 1910.

However for the Midlands region there is a temperature record going back to 1659 called the central England temperature series, and on this record 2018 came 5th with 1976 being 0.5c warmer than 2018 at 17.8c.

Certainly on my figures 2003 equalled this summer in terms of heat but 2018 was much drier than anything we have recorded since 1976. So it all depends on which set of statistics you want to go with.

Looking at my figures we have had the warmest summer since 2003.

The 92 days of the meteorological summer saw temperatures above the very warm 25c on 31 days. On 20 of these days they exceeded 27c or the threshold we call hot and above 30c on just 3 day with my warmest day coming on July 26th at 32.4c.

Compared to other hot summers these figures compare favourably, but 1976 saw temperatures exceed 30c on many more days locally than this summer so perhaps the heat was as long lasting but not quite as intense as in that memorable year.

In 1976 temperatures exceded 90f on 17 consecutive days nationally but this year we only managed three days.

Looking at rainfall we had the driest summer since 1976. I recorded just 82mm for the entire summer and most of that fell in August. Out of the 92 days it was dry for 75 of them with rain falling on just 15.

June was the driest with just 5mm falling. We had a 39 day drought from June 16th right up to July 28th and again the last time we did that was in 1976.

It was also a very sunny month with more than 650 hours of sun being recorded locally making this the 5th sunniest year ever recorded. So in my book 1976 just shades it for me as it was warmer locally but nevertheless this has been a magnificent summer and one historically we should expect every 20 years but you notice we have had five recent fine summers 1976, 1995, 2003, 2006 and 2018. global warming suggests that these will happen more frequently but don’t expect them every year as extra heat can also mean extra wet summers rain as happened between 2007 and 2012.

So a summer to remember and one we shall never forget!