New Zealand Local Weather Forum
Weather Discussion => International => Topic started by: Mark on July 08, 2012, 08:40:29 AM
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By Sarah Westcott
BRITAIN is facing its “worst ever” summer with cold wet weather ruining family holidays and blighting the Olympics, forecasters warned last night.
August is set to be a washout following a miserable July and the wettest June since records began – meaning summer is effectively over.
Gloomy forecasts suggest dire weather will continue as officials last night put Britain on flood alert after torrential downpours yesterday wreaked havoc.
As the Environment Agency warned of a “potential danger to life” with rivers swelling to breaking point in the Midlands, Yorkshire and Wales, Government forecasters were on standby to brief the Cabinet if severe floods strike.
The agency last night issued 51 flood warnings – meaning flooding is expected – and 135 alerts. Monsoon-like downpours hit 85,000 music fans at the T In The Park festival in Kinross, Scotland, and 28,000 Formula 1 spectators camping for the British Grand Prix weekend at Silverstone. Race meetings today in Nottingham and Carlisle were cancelled while play was delayed on all courts at Wimbledon – other than Centre Court.
This could cause significant disruption
Tony Waters, deputy chief forecaster at the Met Office
In Leeds, organisers cancelled music festival MFEST over safety concerns.
Emergency services reported a surge of flood callouts, dispatched special operations teams and told motorists not to drive through floodwater.
The misery is set to continue with parts of the Midlands and northern Britain braced for six inches of rain – more than two months’ worth – in the 72 hours to tomorrow night.
Tony Waters, deputy chief forecaster at the Met Office, said: “We are expecting very heavy and thundery rain, with worst affected spots likely to be in central and northern parts.
“Some places could see around 100mm (3.9in).
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/331299/It-will-rain-til-September
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Seems a rather unfortunate, but apt name to have in the current situation...
That's a fairly bleak outlook they are predicting over there...
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is not a bit premature to be talking about July as if it has already happened when its only 1 week
and then to make a long range prediction about all of august?
as there has been other premature predictions put foward (e.g about being the coldest on record) that did not come to pass, either
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I agree. Premature.
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The Met Office said the washout will continue into August. A spokesman said: “A protracted spell of hot, sunny weather looks very unlikely.”
Forecasters MeteoGroup last night described this summer as “the worst since records began”. Forecaster Paul Knightley said: “This is as bad a summer as we can get in this country.
“It’s wet, cool and dull. It’s not wrong to suggest the first half of summer has been the worst since records began.”
Jonathan Powell, forecaster for Vantage Weather Services, said: “There is no settled fine weather on the horizon and August looks as doomed as July. It is a bitterly disappointing summer and already set to be in the top five wettest on record.
It is abit Premature buts that what they say.
Same link as above
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My comment stands. It's a prediction of sorts, and there should be some sort of probability attached to it, as for all sound seasonal forecasting. As it stands, it sounds too unequivocal and risks being ridiculed later if it is seriously wrong.
Meteogroup's comment is downright daft, as the summer is not even half over yet.
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Our summer is May, June, July, August and is a lot more than half over. Long term predictions of more than four weeks are always subject to the possibility of change, and in terms of local weather it is unlikely to be correct for more than a couple of days, but the general trend is non the less predictable for the country as a whole. Locally, we have not had a 24 hour period without rain for three months and many areas have suffered a similar level of the wet stuff. We have been lucky compared to a lot of areas in terms of the rainfall per hour, and our systems have coped without substantial flooding, but within a few miles of my location, that has not been the case and they have been flooded several times in an area which is NOT subject to regular flooding, and NOT located near a river. The ground in many areas, including my area, is not getting the chance to dry and crops are going rotten as a result.
It is NOT premature to declare this summer as the worst on record or a disaster.
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This thread brings to mind a popular 1960's song by Helen Shapiro - It Might As Well Rain Until September (1966).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sluub4nv9Y0
Helen Shapiro - It Might As Well Rain Until September (1966)_HQ
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It is premature. And the claim made that any local station could have had about 90 consecutive days with at least some precipitation is not credible, merely just the kind of thing that fuels urban legends.
Neither you nor the seasonal forecasters know whether the current jetstream setup will last to the end of August - all that can be stated are probabilities, and very roughly at that.
The climatology for a period is determined my measuring all the datas, not a mixture of data and forecasts!
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Robert, are you close to Macclesfield or further east by the hills? There is a weather station by Oxford Rd, a bit to the west which has weather data we can look at - All Hallows Catholic College. Is this location less likely to see the rain you are discussing? Because they have recorded several days in June free of rain - 11 in fact for June. We need to be talking facts and not feelings here, thanks.
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Indeed. Only extremely rainy/wet climates would ever get a run remotely approaching 90 days. Seattle in the US has not exceeded about 36. Even if you considered the notorious Ballynahinch in Ireland, which once had 309 precip days (0.01" or more) in a year, you'd probably struggle to get such a run.
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Not only have we already had such a run, we continue to have a situation where there has not been a 24 hour period without some precipitation. We are located between Lichfield, Burton -On-Trent and Rugeley at the end of the Cheshire valley. Our location is not normally problematic in terms of rainfall, but can be in terms of snow fall in winter: this year however, it has proven to be the not hot spot, and the site of extensive rainfall although not the heaviest rainfall, and I take exception to anyone interpreting statistics, which are totally irrelevant, and pronouncing an on site report to be other than completely valid.
Just as a matter of interest, our weather forecast until July 20th is for some rain every day.
I will obviously check to ensure that it is not a neighbour being over zealous with a hosepipe.
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You are free to take exception, but the fact of the matter is that you have no objective proof, and in a moderate rainfall regime like yours such numbers (90 consecutive precip. days) do not occur, and have never occurred. I have been hearing dramatic weather claims since I was about 9 - and about 99.99% of them prove to be false or grossly exaggerated. Giving extra credence to any of them only leaves the general populace even more confused than it already is.
Get yourself a decent weather station, set up properly, and start getting some actual data. Then there could a basis for factual assessments. Until then, what amounts to a kind of claim to a totally anomalous record can't be considered reasonable.
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Do you keep daily records Robert? It would be quite amazing if you did get that many consecutive days with precip recorded. Without records though it would be easy to forget one dry day in a myriad of wet ones. It just seems a little hard to believe 90 days with rainfall in the absence of real weather records...
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If you examined UK records, it's not very likely that even the really wet zones would have logged such an occurrence, though it's not inconceivable. But in a lower rainfall regime, there would be no chance at all.
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Remember to all to keep you post Civil to all.
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This story could could give a more reasonable handle on things - a very rainy location managed 40 days, the worst run in the UK since 1861. 90 in a drier place is well out of the ballpark.
http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/2603137/Island-hamlet-suffers-40-consecutive-days-of-rain.html
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My location is Wet Midlands (Sorry - West Midlands) UK.
It certainly feels like we have had the proverbial 40 days and 40 nights, but the beteljuice is certain in his own mind that it is currently about 30 wet days for his locale. Although 'sharing' in the 'national' deluges, this area has been prone to erratic bands of rain as the sysyem passes from one end of the country to another. (Yesterday 4 distinct rain events).
I have mentioned elsewhere concerns by farmers, environmentalists, etc. etc.
In the 'drier' south - did you see a day at Wimbledon when the covers didn't close ?
Even the gardening programs, which are usually shot over three days, are showing all the rain and muddy / washed out conditions - and the only healthy flowering plants they've got are the ones just delivered from poly tunnels (If those are still standing in certain areas).
... and finally to state the obvious : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18793045
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Plus 1 to that. Please keep discussion focussed on the topic. If you are unsure about your responsibilities as members of the forum please refer to the membership section and the site terms and conditions.
Sent from my Ideos using Tapatalk 2
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Robert, I have found five personal weather stations within or just outside your region which you describe as a triangle with 20-25km sides.
Of those, the all agree July so far has been wet. One station has 8 days of rain out of 10, while the other 4 all agree on 10 days of rain so far. The one with the highest total July rain to date is Baswich, 10kms to the NW of the NW corner of the triangle (Rugeley). It has had 73.4mm with the highest daily rain on 6th July of 34.8mm. The other 4 stations all agree with 6th July as being the heaviest rainfall in last 3 months. Other stations are: Lichfield, Highlands, Burton Upon Trent and Newhall.
Of all these stations, they nearly all report 25th, 26th and 27th of June as being "dry", although Newhall saw 1.0mm on the 26th and Highfields recorded 0.3mm on the 27th. All stations had 0.3mm (1/100th") as the minimum rainfall recordable (very common). They all had at least 7 days of no rain for June.
I agree, for the middle of summer, you are having a wretched time especially in July so far.
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And further to that TokWW, summaries for May 2012 emphasise an abrupt change generally to warm settled weather in the period May 21 to May 30. After what followed in June and so far in July, many would start forgetting it.
Bergen - one of the rainiest cities in the world - is alleged to have once had a run of "wet" days (i.e. those with more than a trace of rain) of length 85. That sounds feasible. Of course one should examine any totals that are very small (say 0.2mm or less) in case the accumulation was from other causes.
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Or perhaps the M.O. could pull their collective heads out of the sand and look out of a window ?
(22:32 local time, mizzle / light drizzle since 16:40, been a good day today - a few hours of sun !)
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Our first DRY day, Mark this day in your diary 15th July 2012, the first dry day for over three months,
a genuine period of more than 24 hours without rain.
Fourteen hours of rain are predicted for Monday, and Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are
predicted as WET.
Fourteen hours of rain appears to be the price we have to pay for a dry one.
Luckily, the prediction of fourteen hours appears to be wrong but so was the start time. It was supposed to start raining at 05:00 this morning but actually started at 00:30 and has now stopped, so it might be a break and will re start, but it is just a uniform grey sky and no different to that when it is raining, so it's anyone's guess what will happen. Needless to say, the sponge has now been refilled and we are back to bog and puddles.
Updated at 10:45, it is now raining again at around 5mm per hour and restarted at 10:00, so we may get our 14 hours or more after all; Yuk:)