Is that it? Summer 2020 disappears without trace
This week the Met Office released its analysis of the summer of 2020. The conclusion is that it was warmer than average, wetter than average ... and utterly forgetful.
So forgetful, in fact, that it feels as if summer never even occurred this year. It strikes me looking back at the blur of the past three months how a season means nothing without the activities we associate with it.
During the lost summer of 2020 there was no European Championships, no Wimbledon, no Glastonbury, no cinema blockbusters. That great summer institution the Tour De France belatedly got going last week but it feels strange watching the long autumnal shadows cast by the riders across the mountain passes.
There is historical precedent for a year without summer. In 1816 the fallout from the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambura in Indonesia spewed a huge dust cloud into the atmosphere which caused temperatures to plunge and the sun to disappear.
In 1816 Ireland suffered one of the worst of its recurring potato famines. Typhus broke out, infecting 80,000 and killing 44,000. In July of that summer, holidaying on the shores of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron wrote the poem Darkness, describing: “The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space.”
Despite the best efforts of Storm Ellen and Storm Francis last month, no such meteorological drama shaped this summer. For the season as a whole, the UK has been warmer than average (by 0.38°C), and especially so in the South East.
The UK as a whole only had 89 per cent (449.3 hours) of its average summer sunshine, with Northern Ireland only recording 73 per cent (313.9 hours).
Perhaps this autumn things will start to feel more in sync. School is back, the conkers are falling and leaves are starting to redden and curl.
Regardless of what the weather has in store, it’s these traditions that truly define the seasons.