The UK in August

Mike Hulme on last month’s weather

DAYTIME TEMPERATURES

August was a rather warm month in the UK, with especially warm spells occurring at the beginning of the month, in the middle and again towards the end of the month. The 15^th was the warmest day of the month with a nationwide average daytime temperature of 22.2C. The Bank Holiday weekend was also warm – although not the Bank Holiday Monday itself. Only the far west of the country failed to exceed normal August temperatures, Tiree, Anglesey and Morecambe being the only locations monitored here that were cooler than average. Conversely, the warmest areas in relative terms were the eastern regions of Scotland and England where average daytime temperatures were more than 1.5C above normal.

RAINFALL

The majority of the rainfall in August fell during the first three weeks, the 19^th being the single wettest day with a nationwide average of nearly 10mm. The last 10 days of the month were quite dry. Overall, August was about 12% wetter than normal, but there were quite wide variations over the country. Bristol and Lowestoft recorded more than 60% more rain than normal, while Bournemouth and Birmingham were more than 30% drier than usual. In absolute terms, Bristol was the wettest of the 20 locations monitored here with 139mm of rainfall, narrowly beating Eskdalemuir.

SUNSHINE

Sunshine totals for the UK as a whole were marginally above the August average with some particularly sunny weather occurring towards the end of the month. The August Bank Holiday Monday, although not the warmest of days, was notably sunny with a nationwide average of more than 10 hours sunshine. There was no clear pattern to sunshine anomalies in the UK during August, the three sunniest locations in relative terms being as widely spaced as Stornoway, Belfast and Folkestone, each enjoying more than 20% more sunshine than normal. The summer of 2001 has turned out to be a very average UK summer, just slightly warmer than usual and only a few percentage points drier and cloudier than normal.

Dr Mike Hulme is at UEA and is a Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

(more details at website at www.tyndall.ac.uk)

August 2001: A rather average month; cool in the north

Daytime Temperature: 0.7C above average; Rainfall: 12% above average; Sunshine: 4% above average.

[all average figures are based on the 1951-80 average]

Mean monthly extremes:

Warmest Guernsey 21.8C

Sunniest Folkestone 268 hours sun

Wettest Bristol 140mm

Coldest Lerwick 14.0C

Cloudiest Lerwick 111 hours sun

Driest Birmingham 26mm