Warmest Summer since 2006 in Central England

[xmetman]

It looks like Summer 2016 was the warmest in Central England since 2006 with a mean temperature of 16.43°C which was +1.08°C above the long-term average (1961-1990). Surprisingly no maximum records were broken during the summer but two high minima were.

In the bigger scheme of things Summer 2016 was the joint 27th warmest since 1659 based on mean temperature.

[Julian Mayes]

Bruce,  many thanks for posting this so swiftly. 

A provisional summary has appeared on the Met Office home page (  http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2016/summer-statistics ). I deliberately call it provisional as the title of the item refers to 'Early summer' in the sense of being provisional stats when the stats refer to 'summer' as a whole. I will only make one further comment (those in glasshouses should not throw stones etc) but it does show how national areal stats do not necessarily convey the conditions in particular locations or regions and are often not adequate summaries in themselves. The tone seems rather downcast and I know for many away from the south it has been an unsettled summer, but as you show, the warmth has been quite widespread. I'm sure the public expect a normal summer to reach 33.9C or thereabouts somewhere, whereas we know that is not the case - at least historically.   

Julian Mayes    

[xmetman]

Julian

I think I'll remember 2016 as a good summer and one that never kept trying. 

As you say some parts notably in the west and northwest of Scotland are probably wondering what all the fuss is about.

Looking at the first 10 days of September high pressure is never far away as well.

Bruce.

[Scott Whitehead]

Julian, when I look at the records for London it is striking how localised 2003 was for warmth severity. That year was my warmest summer yet, as pointed out by many in this group, it wasn't a patch on 1976 elsewhere in the UK. This summer seems to share that same 'SE / S bias'.
What strikes me is this warmth was achieved despite it being a relatively very dull summer.

[Martin Rowley [West Moors/East Dorset]]

... based on Hurn data (provisional) in their record 1957+, this summer, with a meanT = 16.9degC is the warmest summer since . . . 2013 (17.0): in their record, there have been 8 summers equal to or warmer than this past event. All of these occurred 1975 or later.
The mean was comfortably within 1sd of the 1981-2010 mean.

Martin.

[Julian Mayes]

Scott, 

Cloudy at times, yes but the cloud amount kept the night-time temperatures up - hence contributed to the overall warmth - at least until about a week or so ago.  

With this 'SE / S bias' as you describe it, it seems a far cry from some of the summers when the hottest place was in Scotland (I'm thinking of the list of hottest places each year - that Trevor Harley maintains, as posted on here a few days ago  http://www.trevorharley.com/trevorharley/weather_web_pages/hottest_and_coldest_days.htm    

...Paisley, Perth, Poolewe, Onich..... but this does not seem to have happened in recent years and maybe only happens when southern England misses out on heat as they are years with 'low highs' if you see what I mean (1963, 1977, 1978). This seems to highlight the importance of synoptic types. 

Julian  

[Trevor Harley]

Having relocated from the south to east Scotland in 1996, I've forgotten what a "good summer" feels like. I miss several days of dawn-to-dusk sunshine, and I miss calm, still days. The few days it gets warm here (20C+) now feel too hot for my ageing bones.

[Dick Lovett]

Bruce,

I notice on the Met Office Hadcet page that they show the Summer as being ranked 39th warmest.

Dick Lovett

[xmetman]

Dick

It depends on which ranking method they use. I always use dense ranking "1223" in all of my programs. See this Wikipedia article on the various methods. The Met Office probably use ordinal ranking or row numbering "1234" which would push 2016 down the list because there are no joint values. If you do the same with my sorted list then 2016 becomes the 37th. I also calculate the seasonal values from daily values since 1772 and use 2 decimal places in the sorted table, and if you used rounding to 1 decimal place you will notice that there are 6 summers that share the 16.4°C, which can change sort order.

I've had this pointed out to me before, but I like the system of ranking that I use. I programmed it many years ago not realising that there were five distinct methods it just felt the best and most logical way to do it.

Bruce.