The sun is trying its hardest to make 2020 less gloomy
FOR obvious reasons 2020 will go down in history as a bit of a stinker, but allow me to spread a little cheer.
Because, despite the pandemic, lockdown and everything else, it has in fact been one of the sunniest years on record. According to the University of Reading’s Sunshine Duration Model, the first observations for which started in 1956, 2020 is currently level pegging with the sunniest year on record: 1959.
There have already been 1,750 hours of sunshine recorded this year. Should the last months of the year prove similarly bountiful, and we record another couple of hundred hours of sunshine, then 2020 will be the winner.
This was largely due to the unprecedented spring sunshine during the first lockdown in April and May. Perhaps with more restrictions bearing down, the weather gods will once more lift us out of the gloom?
This weekend looks promising for notching up a few more hours on the board. It will be chilly and breezy with rain in places but decent sunny spells in between the showers.
I wonder, looking over the weather records, what historical parallels can we draw with 1959? Global catastrophe was, as ever, on our minds. The then prime minister, Harold Macmillan, held talks with Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev on a visit to the USSR, and tens of thousands of demonstrators held a CND rally in Trafalgar Square. The Tories had won three elections in a row, and Ronnie Scott’s jazz club in Soho opened in October – that the old dive bar has recently reopened in defiance of the pandemic brings a smile to this old crooner’s face.
Nothing changes, everything changes: that is a little how life feels at the moment. But whatever happens around us in these coming months, if we just keep looking out for a little more sunshine, then at least 2020 might one day be remembered for something else.