Here in Edinburgh, I've actually forgotten what a really wet spell of weather is like because it is now so long ago since we had last had one that I've even forgotten when that was.

However, I've noticed that Richard from Aberdeen has been complaining a lot recently about the most recent sunshine totals in his area. As this is the moaning thread, he is fully entitled to do that but in doing so, he should at least spare a thought on what it have like recently here in Edinburgh on that front.

Here, we have just had a completely sunless weekend at Edinburgh Gogarbank and with just another 10 days left of this month after today, we have had a total of just 77.6 hours of sunshine during this month so far at Edinburgh Gogarbank which is just a rather miserable 40.9% of the 1991-2020 May average for that particular station. Richard has at least reported that he has had just over a half of his own May average for his own neck of the woods, but we haven't even managed to achieve that here in Edinburgh.

Even on our sunniest day of this month so far, a total of just under 12 hours of sunshine was recorded for that particular day, but this is actually no better than what we had back in March which the same month as when the Vernal Equinox occurs. Yet, we are now only a month away from the summer solstice and at this time of the year, we should therefore be able to achieve a total of more than 12 hours of sunshine quite comfortably on at least a number of occasions.

The fact that we have still not recorded a daily sunshine total of more than 12 hours of sunshine (with only a very short time left to go until the end of the month as well) within what is actually our sunniest month of the year according to our 1991-2020 averages is actually rather pathetic!!😡

Normally, those totals would be better at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh which are normally sunnier than Edinburgh Gogarbank on average. However, the botanic gardens in Edinburgh are closer to the east coast than Edinburgh Gogarbank and because of the predominance of winds from off the North Sea during this spring, that hasn't been the case this time and so, the totals for the botanic gardens are actually even worse on this occasion.

The botanic gardens in Edinburgh is a SYNOP station (along with Edinburgh Gogarbank), but is not in the WMO's list of stations (it doesn't have a WMO number which starts with '03'). Because of that, the sunshine totals which I have for there are never as much up to date as they are for Edinburgh Gogarbank as I have rely on getting that data from the Met Office WOW site (the data for there which I get from weatherobs doesn't include that sunshine data). However, the data which I have for there is only a day or two behind the data for Edinburgh Gogarbank.

As I write, I currently have the sunshine data for the botanic gardens in Edinburgh up to 19 May 2023 but at that point in time, a total of just 65.1 hours of sunshine had been recorded there during this month with that amounting just a miserable 33.4% of that stations 1991-2020 May average, and with a total of just 9.8 hours of sunshine on the sunniest day of this month so far (that is even lass than that figure was for both March and April, and not all that much better than what it was for February despite this month being our sunniest month of the year on average😡).

Finally and with just 10 days left of this month, Edinburgh has still not had a single temperature during this year of 20°C or more. If that doesn't happen before the end of this month, this will be the first spring which I can remember when that was actually the case and if that happens, it will very much be the polar opposite of us going through an entire autumn and into the following winter without a single air frost being recorded here.

Absolutely pathetic!!😡

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I was out for a walk along the bottom of the pentlands at the bypass and it was weird. The gorse is bright yellow and everything else just recedes into the fog but the yellow still shows - it was like being on a star trek set...

Have to say apart from that a miserable late spring day

Once again it's E and NE Scotland suffering more than any other region 🤬

71.9 hours up to yesterday which is about 54% of average for the first three weeks of May. All the worse for following rapidly from the almost as dire 2021 which had 84.2 hours for the same period. 2014 was the only other May in the past 16 years with fewer than 100 hours for the first three weeks.

14 sunless days throughout April and May smashing the previous record of 9 in 2012 and as many as my previous highest total for the entire spring which was 14 in 2018. Of course that was down to March and early April as May was as far removed from the current horror as it's possible to get.

Today just brought more of the same garbage. A stagnant area of repulsive cloud that just sits there. It cleared this afternoon but within little  more than an hour it had all filled back in again 🙄 A surreal, never-ending hell.

Apart from Friday afternoon and evening, and the brief respite this afternoon, it has been almost completely sunless since last Wednesday lunchtime. There are no words that would do this horror of a season justice 😱

An unspeakably vile May and Spring that is the work of Satan. Many of the very worst Novembers, including last year, were nowhere near as insufferably bleak 🤮 Can't even get the interest from heavy downpours and convective activity that bad months in the past would have. It's just soul destroying grey nothingness day after day 🤢

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I am reflecting on when we shall hear the D word!
😁

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As I said yesterday, around here it'll be Sunday. 😉

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Dreich? 😁

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😁 I don't think we do "Dreich" in Lincolnshire.
 

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Believe it or not, I'm actually already starting to look forward to next winter because then, we will at least not have to see those almost constant grey skies as much which we are experiencing these days as it will then be dark for most of the time.

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Severe loss of warm useable days prior to longest day which now not long before drawing back in.   I been reading reports how bad it was in SE this Spring.  When I used to live there at anytime get winds from the east never overcast all day as normally get clear blue skies from 11am.

Very cloudy here in Sheffield now. Looks very cloudy tonight - no chance of photographing the supernova SN 2023ixf, found in Pinwheel Galaxy. The forecast looks very poor for next few nights too. I suspect when it's clear, the supernova will start dimming! Diabolical!! ☹😩😡

It's the weekend and yet again it's another horrific soul destroying cloudfest that is disgusting and depressing beyond comprehension.

It looks as though weekends will come in under 3 hours sun and Sunday under 2 hours. There are just no words. Even the bleakest of winters were never this bad weekend after weekend. Normal levels of sun are pifitul enough in this godforsaken country without sinking to levels that could only be expected in wastelands unfit for human habitation.

How much more of this unrelenting 💩can anyone be expected to take? Every single weekend the same wrist-slittingly awful grey rot that is just unbelievable. Any blue skies that appear just get filled in with cloud almost immediately 😡

It's just getting worse and worse. It was a notably bad run of weekends at the midpoint of this godawful spring but the second half as been even more sunless. All the worse because the weekdays have just had normal weather. It's just the weekends handpicked to have the most grotesque and poisonous crap every single week 🤢

I really am at breaking point. Stuck indoors working all week and for what? To be slapped in the face every single weekend with the most repugnant and detestable conditions which make me feel miserable, tired and fed up.

Filthy sunless horrible depressing grey muck every single weekend of spring.  Feels like I've just had to endure back to back winters with the second being way more bleak, dismal and depressing than the first. Not even the Faeroe Islands could have weekend after weekend of this grot. Just unimaginable even there 🤮
 

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After a so-so start, this May has turned into a cracker. Long may this set-up continue!

😋

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Dry and sunny end to the month. Hose for the garden plants has been used the last week.
Had to buy a new connector for the water gun.

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Yes this month has definitely improved in the past week or so after a very disappointing period. Yesterday was lovely and although there was quite a bit of cloud at times it was dry, warm and bright throughout here in Aberdeen. A very pleasant day spent in the garden.

Today is a bit cooler and the outlook appears dry, sunny and generally quite nice (even if it won’t be notably warm here in the east).

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We will be going to SW Scotland to stay 3 nights at Riverside lodge with hot tubs.  I hope the weather will be nice since it in the far SW Scotland.  Hope not much midges around that area?

I’ll be posting the final figures on Wednesday or Thursday but there is no doubt that this execrable spring will have been the worst season for the Weekend Curse even beating the infamously revolting summer 2007 🤮

Yet another bleak soul destroyingly grey Sunday devoid of anything that makes life worth living, to ensure there was not a single decent, or even half decent Sunday, the entire Spring 🤮

Never experienced anything close to this horror before. Not remotely. Should be the best season of the year offering plenty of opportunities to enjoy everything bursting into life. Instead we end up with this endurance test of never ending hideous filth that should never be expected at any time of year.

Average daily weekend sunshine some 1.7 standard deviations below the previous worst over the past 16 years. This season has been a horrific outlier so awful it never should have happened 🤢

2021    6.73
2012    6.72
2009    6.67
2018    6.35
2011    6.25
2007    6.23
2022    6.21
2008    6.00
2015    5.46
2019    5.43
2017    5.42
2010    5.36
2020    5.16
2016    4.72
2013    4.58
2014    4.24
2023    2.90 😱🤢💩

Even if it could be extended back to 1880 when sunshine recording began in the city I doubt there would be anything to match this horror. Even 1983, the dullest Spring on record, managed an average of 3.25 hours sun per day at the weekends 😲

Saturday daily average of 3.93 hours was easily the worst I have recorded beating 4.34 hours in 2020. 

Even that seemed decent compared to the grotesque 1.88 hours daily average for Sunday. December levels with more than twice the daylight. So ludicrously poor it was less than half the previous lowest average of exactly 4 hours in 2014. Basically there has been no sunshine at all on Sundays for over 3 months, except early in the mornings or evenings and barely anything even then. How the hell can that be tolerated? 🙄

Worst average for any day in Spring was 3.21 hours for Wednesday in 2013 and this year Sunday has finished 41% below that 🤮

So far outside normal range it requires some kind of special explanation but there is none. Nothing that could possibly explain the wrist-slittingly awful weekend weather we are subjected to here that no other part of the country endures 😡
 

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This a record non-stop NE winds as I know for is duration and delivering very cool to average temperatures with little to no sunshine..  In the past NE winds only flow for few days before HP easily move in and that time NE winds deliver temperatures in the low 20's before rising to mid 20's to low 30's as HP move in.  Sunshine always guaranteed to come out from 10-11am in the SE when I lived there to 9-10am in the Midlands and earlier in the west. Now is full on 24 hours clouds and brute force gales force wind up to 50mph gusting as some twigs with new leaves were on the road yesterday.

Most important this if this occur in January especially for Retron this will be a Buffalo heaven treat for the east. with gale force non-stop winds, extreme low wind chill and maximum day time temperatures fall to -5 to -10C because of non-stop wind kept feeding in than in 1987 which was only 1 day wonder to give very low day max then rise because wind die out.  I am sure Retron area will be well over 1m deep of snow, 2m over the hills, near 1m in London to Surrey area from Thames streamers and more than 1ft in the Midands from their own streamers.

I had 28cm from a 12 hours Thames Streamer back in 2nd Feb 2009 but how deep it can be if this few weeks non-stop winds will deliver far deeper snow amount?

This had been in my mind about what the outcome if this occur in January.

New summer moaning thread opening - leaving this open for a while for retrospective comments

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"A spring of two halves"


(well, not quite halves... about 70% ranged from poor to unremarkable; the final 30% was very good)

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May finished not quite as dull as 1993, 2014 and 2021 but the Weekend Curse made it feel much worse than any of those awful months. I have never hated a May as much as I despised the one just gone and ditto for Spring as a whole.

The worst ever season for the Weekend Curse. 5.62 hours average for the weekdays which would translate to an above average 517 hours for the season had it been replicated at the weekends but the ludicrous 2.9 hour average that was recorded for the weekends would equate to an utterly revolting 267 hours which is way lower than any spring has ever recorded 🤢

7 consecutive months of this vile, irrational and inexplicable curse. Not one of those has even seen weekends manage 85% of the weekday average 🤯It's just beyond ridiculous. 

Worst Seasons for the Weekend Curse (weekend daily sunshine as a % of weekday with averages in brackets) :

1. Spring 2023: 52% (5.62/2.90)
2. Summer 2007: 61% (4.30/2.63)
3. Autumn 2021: 66% (3.73/2.47)
4. Spring 2020: 73% (7.11/5.16)
5. Summer 2011: 82% (4.78/3.93)

That three of those five hideous seasons are in the 2020s is telling 🤢

I thought the 2010s were the nadir for weather, particularly 2014-19, so I am truly flabbergasted by how the 2020s have managed to sink so much lower 😴

2023 so far makes years that were excruciating to endure, such as 2014, seem almost bearable by comparison so wouldn’t be surprised if summer 2023 manages to blast summer 2011 out of the Hall of Shame 🤮


 

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