Fantastic autumnal morning here. Low of -3 overnight and woke to crisp frost and sunshine. -1 at 9am. 
I had also been tinkering with the settings in my ASHP ahead of it to ensure waking to a nice warm house and it worked perfectly. Satisfying.

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Currently 10.6 C at 11 am under overcast skies and is damp here at Folkestone, yet it peaked at 18.3 C with unbroken sunshine on Tuesday afternoon where I was sweating in T shirt and shorts. I've just been on a short bike ride and had to wear coat and trousers (instead of shorts) but my hands and face are literally numb with the cold, that served a good reminder why I find this time of the year depressing - and it's only mid-October.

At least it'll be feeling a little "milder" tomorrow (Friday) with the sun being out and lighter winds.

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A monstrously vile, unpleasant and uninteresting period of weather. The worst I've ever known at this time of year.

A ghastly, filthy vile autumn with no redeeming features whatsoever. Ridiculously cold, dull, wet and totally unusable lacking in anything remotely interesting or tolerable. One car crash weekend after another.

Yet another absolutely stinking awful weekend. Featureless grey overcast and rain yet again with a nasty cold wind and a dire temperature of 7.4C, barely above another tedious mild min of 6.8C.

Just one of the past four Saturdays managed 2 hours of sun and here we are looking out at more ugly soul destroying grey garbage. Another diabolical weekend when I’m being kept prisoner in my own house instead of being able to do the things I enjoy.

It’s hard to believe you could get Octobers as bad as those of the 2000s and 2010s let alone even worse. Only the first half of October 2022 has been anything other than a complete disastrous write-off so far in this revolting decade.

Despite being beyond abysmal I still managed to cycle over 200 miles in each October this decade but can’t see that being achieved this month. Can’t get out on any long cycles as the weekends are so dire and the weekdays are barely any better so even struggling to get short rides done then. When I do go out I need gloves and a scarf which is ridiculous for this time of year.

The past few weeks have been the coldest I’ve ever known at this time of year. Daytime temperatures 2C below average, barely any sun, house completely drained of warmth and need heating on all the time. Unheard of at this time of year. It’s as if we’re in mid-November already.

Only run this persistently cold in the first half of October was the 10th – 16th October 1981 which saw maxima of 8-10C daily. We are seeing that now but a day earlier. This follows on from the second coldest final third of September in over 60 years, after 1974.

Both September 1974 and October 1981 brought proper cold nights showing then that the weather was nowhere near as disgusting as now with the semi-permanent blanket of grot and the wind that never drops out on the rare occasions it is actually clear.

Hasn’t reached 15C now in more than three weeks and wonder if it will for the rest of the year now. 1974 didn’t reach it after 19th September. No doubt it will end up the same way with a disgusting mild December following. 1974 was a truly awful year of seasonless tripe. A prototype for the 21st Century weather hell.

Not nearly as bad as the past two years though, which have just been excruciatingly awful and a danger to both physical and mental health and wellbeing. It's akin to enduring the 2007-12 summers year round. Just no respite from the abject hell.

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Frost on roof and grasss Fri,11th .

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I need a dry day on Friday and it's on a knife edge at the moment 🥺

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More autumn perfection here at the moment. Cold crisp nights with temps hovering around 0 giving way to crisp, dry and bright mornings. Here’s the view from my mancave.
 

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Should be dry until at least late afternoon. Met Office online forecast has been moving the arrival time of the main rain band between about 7pm and 10pm with 'outrider' patches of drizzle. (currently shows increasing chance of rain from around 6pm; main band to hit 8-9pm) BBC was, until today, showing higher chance of light rain from much earlier, but has more or less swung into line with the Met Office.

Could do with the rain holding off until 9pm, as riding the coasters in the dark is one of the highlights of the visit, and the atmosphere of the park in general is fantastic at night.

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Another godawful week in another putrefying, repellant autumn. Just can't seem to get any wind blowing from the westerly half of the compass any more.

Gloomy, wet and murky beyond belief. Zero sign of anything remotely above average except at night with more sickeningly vile minimum temperatures barely any different to maxima. Barely any sun, on the majority of days, so heating needed all the time. I really feel for the pensioners who can't afford to heat their homes because the worst government in history has stolen their winter heating allowance to give to the most undeserving in society instead.

Almost every single day now for four weeks has seen below average maxima. Just a few days at the start of the month that brought near average highs of 13-14C. Today reached the average of 12C for the first time in 10 days but it feels even colder due to the disgusting weather.  Even Sunday which was the coldest day in the first half of October since 1994, despite being sunny in the morning, felt warmer than this filth.

13 completely sunless days already this autumn with the traditionally worst half still to come although it's hard to imagine how things could be much worse than what's been endured so far.

It has always been a challenge to get decent weather at this time of year, and I can rarely remember anything good during the October holiday week in my childhood, but this is just a whole different level of abhorrent, unpleasant and totally unusable crap.

It's actually worse than last October despite being nowhere near as wet. At least we had some warm, sunny and dry weather and also managed a frost, none of which has been , or is likely to be, achieved this month. 2023 also had 13 dry days in total whereas there has been just one in the last 11 now. Can't even get a single dry hour now when the wind is blowing from the SE - the worst possible quarter for the wind to come from.

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Mid October and still needs of a fan to get a decent night's sleep. 

Strange as there no 30 plus heatwave since August?  Those temperatures this month are fine for sleeping unless you have sleeping issue? perhaps to see a doctor to fnd out?   My fan upstairs had been off since last cloudy warm spell in August in my bedroom.  18-20c now day or night so sleeping no issue.

One thing I am pleased to see the trees going yellow right in mid October than late November to earliy December in recent years so hope we get a correct winter season and correct Spring this time.  

Bedroom has been 19-22C overnight range lately, combined with the high dew points & warm overnight temperatures we've had recently, and this has led to the need of a fan. 

We've seen DP's 18.5C
Overnight lows of 16C

Yet another filth Sunday. Totally and utterly hideous with no redeeming qualities as it has been week in week out for the past two years.

Didn't get the good day that was forecast yesterday either as the best part of the day was completely ruined by a mass of unforecast grot pumping up from the south to block out the sun. That's basically all October consists of nowadays - crap from the south or south east.

Haven't had a westerly October since 2008 and it's no coincidence there hasn't been a good one since then either.

Every single weekend is a mix of uninspiring and unusable. Can't believe there could be anywhere worse to live on the planet. A soul detroying wrist slittingly awful horror show played out constantly for the past two years. 

An extreme Weekend Curse present, almost constantly, that keeps getting worse and worse. This vile season is on track to be the worst I've ever recorded for the Weekend Curse with just 56% sun for weekends compared to weekdays. The current record is 61% held by the infamously rancid and revolting Summer 2007.

Autumn 2014 was the dullest since 1968 yet just half way through this repugnant decade will have prodiced two autumns with even duller weekends. It's just grim, depressing and unbearable beyond belief.

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Yet another day when the forecast bears little resemblance to the weather we have. Chilly, grey, thick cloud and drizzly. 12.3C

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Welcome to an average day in NW England!

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That’s odd because the forecast for here was mostly cloudy with patchy rain clearing later, and that’s pretty much what we got.  A lovely late afternoon as the clearance arrived from the west.

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Had a lovely afternoon in Haworth. It's an amazing place with a beautiful vibe, especially at Halloween.

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But it is not yet Halloween, Saint! All Hallows' Eve is the 31st. All else is invented bollocks to sell you meaningless junk. The shelves of the local Co-op are loaded with pointless pumpkins. None of this crap matters except to milk us of our cash.

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A bit like having Hot Cross buns on sale alongside mince pies and Christmas cake in October…. 

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Read my post in the Forum Arms 😉

Besides, we put our Xmas tree up the beginning of December, and partake in as many Xmas events as we can throughout December.

The build-up to a 'special day' is a big (the biggest?) part of the fun!!

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Bah. Humbug. 🤢 Yes - I did read it. 🤣

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Funny you should say that on the day I made my Christmas cake, so it can be well fed with plenty of booze before decorating, as well as making a batch of fruit buns (my husbands favourite), which is the same recipe I use for hot cross buns, only this time round I made them with Saffron (Cornish roots). Just proving this is possible! But at least I didn't buy them ready done, so there's that I guess.
I've already made my mincemeat, 2 weeks ago.I have to admit this is the first year I have been this far ahead and it's where I have always strived to be so I'm quietly pleased with myself. 😉😊😁
I've done the pumpkin carving in the past, when our tribe was very much younger but not really been on board with the over decorating or getting dressed up. Let alone the "trick or treating" that was never encouraged in our house but I have and do have a small bowl of sweets on hand if there's any callers but we used to live on a busy main road so never really had many come knock there. Not sure about here, where we've moved to but we'll get some sweets in just in case, to be neighbourly.
So far autumn here has been wonderfully Autumn like with some rain, some sun and some misty mornings.

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Autumn seems to have progressed quite quickly this year. I always tend to find October moves quite slowly, but it really hasn't been the case this time. I think the mildness over the last two weeks has helped it to progress?

Still, it's the three worst months of the year for me after this. I hate November, it's just a dark, miserable month with the prospect of 3 months of rubbish in front. Roll on February!

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So I watched the 17.55 pm BBC forecast with Stav Danaos last night and he spent a good deal of time saying that today will and the next few days will be dominated by High Pressure and dry but mostly cloudy because there will be no wind to blow the cloud away as illustrated on his map. So what happened? Awoke to clear blue skies and no cloud. Then became progressively cloudy and continuous light rain set in which has continued all day, It is also very windy with my largest fall of autumn leaves so far. It was cloudy in the end though!

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I can't remember such a benign Autumn. No wind, still mild. Sea temp. is currently 15.6C. 

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