record heat at the start of month with max temps of 34 or 35 c

severe storms 2 days later countrywide

 

but what is so weird is that conditions resembled mid winter last Friday and yesterday with max temps of 14c, a cold wind and heavy rain - more like a mildish Jan day !

 

never so much change in a short space of time

 

does anyone remember a summer month like this July with so much variety ?

 

thanks to Gavin Partridges excellent historic videos april 1981 and May 1997 come to mind

would be grateful if Gavin Partridge or anyone else has any thoughts on this

 

Thanks sriram

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Hi Sriram

I actually think GW would be better to answer than myself. 

I can't remember such an extreme swing from hot to cold before but of course that doesn't mean it's never happened. 

Edit: June 1975 was quite extreme (snow at the start, very hot later)

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It would surely be a huge irony if, having recorded the all-time highest July temperature for the UK on the first day of the month, this month possibly ends up coming in below average in terms of CET. Not that that will actually happen for sure, but it does seem as though things have cooled down a lot even in the south as the month has gone on.

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The summer of 1957, I seem to recall, was very changeable; June seeing a lot of warm, sunny weather, leading to a late month heatwave with temperatures up to 35.6C, in London (Camden Square). Thereafter, however, the summer degenerated into something similar to what we had for last 5 days, lasting for the rest of the summer.

The summer of 1919 has been extremely variable with unusually cold July, followed by a good deal of very warm, fine weather for August, except for late month, when it turned cold and wet again; only 10 C in Liverpool on 28th. This variation became most extreme in September; there was a heatwave in early month, with temperatures up to 32.2 C at Raunds (Northamptonshire) on 11th. However, on 19th and 20th September, a cold wave swept the country, bringing max temperatures down to 7.8 C in Aberdeen, and snow covered the ground at low levels in Scotland and Northern England, and sleet showers have said to have occurred as far south as the Thames valley. 

Maybe there were similar temperature anomalies in North Atlantic and Southern Europe like there has been this summer.

Good pick.

And had a developing El Nino as well. And 1950's generally a good match to current scenario in terms of PDO and AMO.

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This is what makes our weather interesting - we never no what's round the corner

One thing is certain - we will get cold snowy winters, mild wet winters, cold wet summers and hot summers - all in the future at some point

A lot of people reckon that global warming will pretty much remove our cold snowy winters for good and summers will trend to the warm dry side with more extreme rain events

But no one knows for certain for sure what will happen in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years.........

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July 1968 started hot with Saharan dust, violent thunderstorms and large hail. That month ended with a CET of just 15.0C

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I am in no better position to answer without spending a whole lot of time looking back through the archives and I'm afraid I don't have the time.

A quick look at 1975 shows that on 1st and 2nd June Heathrow recorded a maximum of 14C. On the 13th it recorded a maximum of 28C so a big swing but not that unusual.

In July 1957 Kew Gardens recorded a maximum temperature of 88F. The lowest daily maximum was 64F recorded on three separate days.

I would expect the biggest swings in a summer month to be in June because you can get some very high temperatures late in the month but also some quite low temperatures at the start of the month. In June 1957 the highest temperature at Cardington was 90F (32C) on the 29th. The lowest daily maximum was 57F (14C) on the 10th. That is a swing of 18C which is very large.