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Spring 2021 General Discussion

daniel_t1409

I know it's early to start this thread but in fairness the winter thread was started in August so.....:P.

Last spring was one of the best ever - basically 2-3 months of sunshine and very little rain, resulting in a hosepipe ban. Followed by one of the dullest, wettest summers.

There is still plenty of winter left but I just want to start some early discussion on this spring, predictions, etc.

I would like a nice dry spring to give the ground a chance to dry out - it's been saturated since last June.

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Graces7

As peaceful a night as ever was out here. Not a whisper of wind. Just a deep, sweet silence. All is calm and at ease.

Oh yesterday the midges were swarming. Hordes of them. but there are bees too and so many butterflies .

Summer is waiting in the wings to make a shining sun- robed entrance..

But tonight; peace that is far, far more than the absence of noise. A powerful presence.

West Mayo offshore.

Goldfinch8

Oscar Bravo wrote: »

While its a cool night out its a beautiful night out, still blue skies out west here in Castlebar. perfect night for watching out for meteors after.

It certainly was a lovely evening sky out there Oscar Bravo with a nice lingering twilight and it definitely was a cool one. Was out along the banks of the River Moy this eve and it felt like an evening in early March.
Temperature read 2c when I got back to the car at 9.45pm. I see that Casement registered 1c in the 10pm reports with a number of other stations at 2c.
Not a bad day here at all once the early showers died off but I personally wouldn't mind seeing a bit of warmth returning and some bit of nature coming into these May evenings.

River Moy, Co. Mayo this eve.
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JCX BXC

Have gotten away with murder here in West Clare seemingly. Completely dry today, despite a number of nearby showers, it seems to have been a trend lately. Other than the weather system that passed over on Sunday/Monday, most days have only 1/2 small showers, if any, whereas other areas nearby have been much wetter.

Despite the cool temperatures, the may sun is nice and warm, so it can be quite pleasant out.

lolie

The planet Mercury is visible now low on the horizon looking West northwest.

appledrop

The only way to describe weather over past few days is mad.

It's sunny, then lashing rain, then hailstones, then sunny etc and very cold for May.

Now I have to say its not bothering me too much at the moment because I'm hoping it's going to be followed by nice weather in summer!

Spring so far has been exceptionally dry here at DA. In fact nearly an exact replica of last Mar & Apr with only 32mm and 10mm of rain. We then had a very dry May in 2020 which was followed by a wash out summer with 70mm in June, 99mm in July and 87mm in August.

I dont want a repeat of that so I'll happily take more rain in May if it means nice weather on June!

August is always a wash out in Dublin and I always refer to it as autumn weather wise.I got married in August and yes you guessed it rained on the day! In normal times we go abroad in August and always raining when we leave DA and we come home.

One year we actually came in to DA and everywhere around was flooded! Couldn't believe what we were seeing when plane came into land.

Whole place shut down and no taxis coming in or out or public transport. We had too wait two hours for family member to be able to pick us up.

No doubt someone here will figure out what year that was!

Oneiric 3

Augusts can often be cloudy (and very humid) but from a weather lovers point of view, it also is most volatile of all the summer months. And something I have noticed is that the evening twilights during the 2nd half of the month are weirdly beautiful and 'lingering', much more so than their pre-solstice equivalents.

Oscar Bravo

While its a cool night out its a beautiful night out, still blue skies out west here in Castlebar. perfect night for watching out for meteors after.

sryanbruen

Tyrone212 wrote: »

I haven't looked at the stats to back up my opinion so maybe I'm talking s... but I think August has become more and more Autumnal in recent years. Seems like they were better overall 10+ years ago.

Waiting on 1991-2020 averages to come for the Republic in July. In terms of Northern Ireland (N.I.) from the stats I've gathered, going from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020, it seems N.I. has had slightly warmer summers (very small difference in both mean max and mean min), wetter summers with June and July seeing a fairly significant increase and sunshine has stayed the same. I was kind of surprised with not seeing more of an increase in mean min and a decrease in sunshine because to me it seems we have had cloudier summers resulting in less of a temperature drop overnight. The Northern Ireland data seems to say no to this.

It should be noted though that if I take Augusts of the 1990s out of the equation, there has been a reduction in sunshine. The 1990s tended to feature an abnormal run of warm Augusts although not all were dry - like the exceptional humid and very warm August of 1997 was extremely wet in the south. Of course, August 1995 stands out big time breaking all kinds of warm, dry and sunshine records. Junes weren't the greatest for the most part in the 1990s with 1990, 1991, 1993, 1997, 1998 and 1999 all being quite or very poor whilst Julys were very mixed. You could say the 1990s favoured more 'backloaded summers' compared to the 2010s which featured a fair few front-loaded ones. I have mentioned before that it seems since this run of somewhat better Augusts from around 1989/90 to 2003, we've had our fair share of mundane, often boring or very dull and zonal wet Augusts with 2010 being the driest and sunniest of the lot but on the cool side.

The only 1991-2020 stats I have to compare in the Republic is sunshine for Dublin Airport which July saw a big reduction from 81-10 to 91-20, almost 10 hour loss. June has seen an increase whilst August has seen a decrease but not as large as July. I am intrigued to see how the trends are for other places.

giveitholly

Feck it's cold out there!!!

Thelonious Monk

Tyrone212 wrote: »

I haven't looked at the stats to back up my opinion so maybe I'm talking s... but I think August has become more and more Autumnal in recent years. Seems like they were better overall 10+ years ago.

This is from August 2019 I took it from Baggot St but I remember it being day after day of this stuff. Today had a lot of this black cloud where I am.

Tyrone212

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

August is always terrible, so the window is pretty narrow, but I don't mind putting up with this for another few weeks if we get a few weeks of decent summer.
weather.
Some really low cloud today, some of the cloud smoky black, with intermittent showers. This is the kind of weather I usually associate with July and August only a few degrees warmer!

I haven't looked at the stats to back up my opinion so maybe I'm talking s... but I think August has become more and more Autumnal in recent years. Seems like they were better overall 10+ years ago.

Niall145

Lying snow on the Dublin mountains right now!

Thelonious Monk

August is always terrible, so the window is pretty narrow, but I don't mind putting up with this for another few weeks if we get a few weeks of decent summer.
weather.
Some really low cloud today, some of the cloud smoky black, with intermittent showers. This is the kind of weather I usually associate with July and August only a few degrees warmer!

lolie

That wasn't the worst of days here, only caught the edge of a few showers that barely wet the ground. Spoke to a few people earlier who were caught in big hail showers.
Cold out though, down to 3c already.
The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks tonight with up to 10-20 per hour later in the night,wrap up if heading out.

KanyeSouthEast

highdef wrote: »

As much as I love warm (25° - 30° every day for a couple of months would be heaven for me.....wrong country to be living in for that though!) and sunny summer weather above anything else, we have only just entered the final month of Spring so the weather of late, although still cold for the time of year, is typical April showers type weather, albeit ever so slightly later than usual. In fact, the showery weather often associated with April very often overspills into May.

You question whether the weather we are experiencing lately is a sign of what is to come during the summer months. Well, quite often we get stuck in a pattern of similar weather and it often lasts for weeks on end, if not a few months. Take last year, for example. April and May were generally gorgeous and then once we got a few days into summer, we entered the most miserable summer in quite a while especially with regards to sunshine.

Better than normal summers quite often follow poor Springs and worse than normal summers quite often follow good Springs. Of course, this is not a rule, it's simply a result of us often getting stuck in a similar pattern of weather for a long period of time before flipping to something quite different.

Now I'm not saying that this upcoming summer is going to be one to remember (for the right reasons) but I am saying that going by the weather of late combined with the poor weather forecast in the short to medium term, it would not surprise me one bit if we had a flip to high pressure/warm settled weather sometime in June (maybe slightly after, maybe before), with the weather remaining generally settled for a good while after that.

It would be unusual, based on past years, to have a poor summer following a poor Spring.

Thanks for your reply really interesting thoughts and I hope you are right. Realise I’m in the wrong country but the flip side is we see months of people here looking for snow when the reality is we are also the wrong country for that and you could argue temps 25 degrees are as regular an occurrence here as snow and I mean proper snow!

esposito

highdef wrote: »

As much as I love warm (25° - 30° every day for a couple of months would be heaven for me.....wrong country to be living in for that though!) and sunny summer weather above anything else, we have only just entered the final month of Spring so the weather of late, although still cold for the time of year, is typical April showers type weather, albeit ever so slightly later than usual. In fact, the showery weather often associated with April very often overspills into May.

You question whether the weather we are experiencing lately is a sign of what is to come during the summer months. Well, quite often we get stuck in a pattern of similar weather and it often lasts for weeks on end, if not a few months. Take last year, for example. April and May were generally gorgeous and then once we got a few days into summer, we entered the most miserable summer in quite a while especially with regards to sunshine.

Better than normal summers quite often follow poor Springs and worse than normal summers quite often follow good Springs. Of course, this is not a rule, it's simply a result of us often getting stuck in a similar pattern of weather for a long period of time before flipping to something quite different.

Now I'm not saying that this upcoming summer is going to be one to remember (for the right reasons) but I am saying that going by the weather of late combined with the poor weather forecast in the short to medium term, it would not surprise me one bit if we had a flip to high pressure/warm settled weather sometime in June (maybe slightly after, maybe before), with the weather remaining generally settled for a good while after that.

It would be unusual, based on past years, to have a poor summer following a poor Spring.

I’m with you on this. I remember May 2013 & May 2014 being very showery and the summers that followed were very good. It’s not a rule of course but in my opinion it bodes well for a good summer. A bold prediction I’m making is a warm/ settled June extending into most of July followed by an unsettled August ( nothing new there).

Gaoth Laidir

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

I've never really understood this 'April showers' thing, because that implies that showers are exclusive to April. I think most of us, in the west at least, would agree that showers are a year wide occurrence, with the most brutish of them tending to occur in the winter months.

But, on average, April is the month with the strongest dual effect of increasing solar radiation coinciding with still cold upper air hanging around from the winter. March, the sun's not strong enough. May, the cold air has usually retreated well back north.

Oneiric 3

highdef wrote: »

we have only just entered the final month of Spring so the weather of late, although still cold for the time of year, is typical April showers type weather, albeit ever so slightly later than usual. In fact, the showery weather often associated with April very often overspills into May.

.

I've never really understood this 'April showers' thing, because that implies that showers are exclusive to April. I think most of us, in the west at least, would agree that showers are a year wide occurrence, with the most brutish of them tending to occur in the winter months.

OldRio

9 months of poor weather at this location minus a week or so. Desperate.

highdef

KanyeSouthEast wrote: »

While I appreciate the lovely descriptive language being used can I just say for someone who likes nice dry warm sunny summer weather this is horrible. It’s cold it’s breezy it’s rain/hailing it’s unpleasant and honestly if this is a sign of our summer God help anyone with the outdoor summer lark we are being sold!

As much as I love warm (25° - 30° every day for a couple of months would be heaven for me.....wrong country to be living in for that though!) and sunny summer weather above anything else, we have only just entered the final month of Spring so the weather of late, although still cold for the time of year, is typical April showers type weather, albeit ever so slightly later than usual. In fact, the showery weather often associated with April very often overspills into May.

You question whether the weather we are experiencing lately is a sign of what is to come during the summer months. Well, quite often we get stuck in a pattern of similar weather and it often lasts for weeks on end, if not a few months. Take last year, for example. April and May were generally gorgeous and then once we got a few days into summer, we entered the most miserable summer in quite a while especially with regards to sunshine.

Better than normal summers quite often follow poor Springs and worse than normal summers quite often follow good Springs. Of course, this is not a rule, it's simply a result of us often getting stuck in a similar pattern of weather for a long period of time before flipping to something quite different.

Now I'm not saying that this upcoming summer is going to be one to remember (for the right reasons) but I am saying that going by the weather of late combined with the poor weather forecast in the short to medium term, it would not surprise me one bit if we had a flip to high pressure/warm settled weather sometime in June (maybe slightly after, maybe before), with the weather remaining generally settled for a good while after that.

It would be unusual, based on past years, to have a poor summer following a poor Spring.

Oscar Bravo

A dry sunny evening here just outside Castlebar but very cool. Grand once your doing a bit though

KanyeSouthEast

PowerToWait wrote: »

I’d rather have summer weather in summer and wet spring.

True but the danger is we get a wet spring and no summer. Would just like it to warm up a bit. It was 4.5 degrees during one of the showers earlier that’s just wrong!

PowerToWait

I’d rather have summer weather in summer and wet spring.

KanyeSouthEast

While I appreciate the lovely descriptive language being used can I just say for someone who likes nice dry warm sunny summer weather this is horrible. It’s cold it’s breezy it’s rain/hailing it’s unpleasant and honestly if this is a sign of our summer God help anyone with the outdoor summer lark we are being sold!

Graces7

Graces7 wrote: »

Agree re the sun; amazingly powerful.

What is even .. I have been sowing seeds in trays for weeks and little has emerged as too cold. Today after good rain then sun there are little green shoots in rows in so many trays... Lovely to see them .

Tyrone212

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

Is that a red Focus I see?

Took me a minute to get it haha

Meteorite58

22° Halo taken here near Tralee early afternoon.

11.2C , good sunshine getting through the Cirrus and lower Cumulus

65HMibw.jpg?1

Gaoth Laidir

Tyrone212 wrote: »

A snowy scene at Ponderosa restaurant, Derry , altitude 288m this morning.

Is that a red Focus I see?

Graces7

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

The sun is as high and as strong today as it would be on August 6th believe it or not, and when sheltered from the wind, you'd know it. But once it goes behind the clouds again, it feels more like March 6th. It is the classic sort of 'summer in the sun; winter in the shade' sort of day.

Agree re the sun; amazingly powerful.

Oneiric 3

The sun is as high and as strong today as it would be on August 6th believe it or not, and when sheltered from the wind, you'd know it. But once it goes behind the clouds again, it feels more like March 6th. It is the classic sort of 'summer in the sun; winter in the shade' sort of day.