"Paul Saunders" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:I agree with you here. If I book a holiday in Scotland I will always
try to go in May/June as opposed to July/August for that reason.
Unfortunatly that didn't work this year as June had rainfall 75%
above average in the Oban region.
That's the thing with weather, it's so variable. Averages are just
that, averages, that doesn't mean the weather will be like the average.
August may be very wet one year and have blistering heatwaves the next,
so that averages out into a "typical" August that may not be very
typical at all.
I totally agree with you here. What I am saying is that holidaying in
Scotland in May/June you are more likely to get decent weather than in
July/August. I never said it was guarenteed.
Quoted message said:
One thing that used to surprise me in the past was how often weather
records are broken, like the "driest summer on record in England and
Wales" or the "most rainfall in one day in the south-west" or the
"hottest February day ever in Wales" and so on. The fact is that
weather is so variable and records have been kept for such a relatively
short length of time that new records are still quite common, especially
when qualified by a specific place and time. Records like "hottest day
ever in the UK" aren't broken very often.
Reminds me of something my boss said. He stated that it is more unusual if a
weather record isn't being broken somewhere. Something for the media to
think about when they try to blame every little thing on global warming.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:I was referring to most peoples perceptions here. It's not been too
bad in the SE either.
Perceptions are a funny thing. Not only do people have different points
of view but much depends on how much time one spends out in the weather.
For example if you're indoors working while it's sunny all week then it
rains every weekend, you might get the perception that it was a mostly
wet month.
Which is why I check the Met Offices monthly assessments to see how "normal"
a month was. This August was actually close to average for sunshine as most
of the rain fell in showers rather than prolonged warm sector stratiform
rain.
Quoted message said:
January 1988 has a special place in my heart. I was out taking photos
on no less than 14 days that month, one of the sunniest and most
productive Januaries ever as I recall it, yet when I mentioned the
January sunshine to someone a month later they replied "what sunshine?
It rained non-stop all month!"
This was confirmed by the met office who recorded it as the wettest
January for 45 years. Yet to me it was a very sunny month, and I have
the photos to prove it! Obviously there was a lot of sunshine in
between all that rain, and since I was out in that sunshine taking
photos my perception is of a sunny month, whereas other people remember
it as a very wet month.
Not that I didn't notice the rain too, I was out walking and camping in
it a few times, but I was selective and managed to miss most of it,
picking out the fine days.
Quoted message said:Quoted message said:> more typical of autumn,
How dare you accuse this naff summer of being like my favourite
season! :-)
Quoted message said:I was referring to the fact that the weather has been far more
unsettled than normal, rather than the temperature.
Fair enough.
Quoted message said:30 degrees isn't that common. 20-25 is a more typical August high.
In the longer term yes, but I've experienced 30 degrees here during
summer quite frequently during recent years. This has been the coolest
summer for quite a few years I'm glad to say. At least that's been my
perception of it.
Which shows how wrong perceptions can be. August (and indeed the whole
summer) had above average temperatures.
Quoted message said:
Quoted message said:25-30C is NOT typical for September.
Of course not. But the weather is no respecter of dates. Throughout
the year there are typical weather patterns which tend to recur, often
associated with specific dates, for example the March and October gales,
April showers and so on, but the timing of these patterns varies from
one year to the next, so sometimes a weather pattern occurs earlier or
later than normal, such as the late heat we're experiencing now. In
1994 we had an unexpected heavy snowfall in April, more typical of
March.
Interestingly enough, statistically, a white easter is more likely than a
white christmas.
Adam
Quoted message said:
Paul
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