Has Iceland stolen our summers

Birdnuts

Apologies for the rather flippant title to this thread but I'm just inquiring if anyone has stats on recent summers in Iceland. As an amateur weather watcher it appears to me that Ireland has spent most of her summers since 06' stuck under or next to LP systems that should be much nearer Iceland at this time of year. In contrast our Northern cousins appear to be enjoying entended periods under HP cells during the summer monthts. Based on this I wonder how good their summers have been in recent years compared to averge??

Gonzo

I cant answer that question but something is defitely gone horribly wrong, Im in my late 30s and have never seen 6 summers in a row offering nothing but cold and relentless rain till now, each summer we think 'this has to be the end of it' or 'sure next summer can't be as bad' but it keeps getting worse. The way things are going next summer will be worse than this years who knows.

road_high

Gonzo wrote: »

I cant answer that question but something is defitely gone horribly wrong, Im in my late 30s and have never seen 6 summers in a row offering nothing but cold and relentless rain till now, each summer we think 'this has to be the end of it' or 'sure next summer can't be as bad' but it keeps getting worse. The way things are going next summer will be worse than this years who knows.

Is that actually possible though? Unless it rains 24/7 ....God myabe youre right :eek:

CorkMetMan

Yes, something has definitely changed in the last 6 years. Looking back on past charts on the Wetterzentrale site, prior to 2007 northern blocking during the summer months for any length of time was a rare beast.

OK, we had very unsettled summers in the medium past, particularly from 1985 to 1988 inclusive, but looking at the synoptic charts for those summers will show that pressure was also low over Greenland and Iceland for most of the time, with troughing over Ireland and the UK.

Since 2007, northern blocking has become a major player, with pressure frequently very high indeed for the time of year over Greenland and ridging into Iceland. This, with its consequent southerly tracking jet, has ruined the summer period to some extent in all of those years, put this year seems to be head and shoulders above the rest in terms of pure misery as regards summer weather. The following summaries refer to IMBY records:

2007 was bad, as regards temperatures and rain, but at least it was sunny.

2008 was a poor summer overall, but it had some notably fine days between the many unsettled spells.

2009 was a horrible summer, particularly July and August, but again there were some very nice days mixed in. June wasn't too bad either.

2010 had a wet July, but both June and August were OK, not great in terms of heat, but dry and reasonably sunny.

2011 had a wet June, but July and August were both drier and sunnier if cooler than average.

2012 has had no redeeming features at all so far; it's just day after day of cool, grey wet dross which would do your head in. Not so much as anything resembling a summer's day since May 26th, and that's not even in summer. Absolutely dire in every respect.

fizzycyst

CorkMetMan wrote: »

Yes, something has definitely changed in the last 6 years. Looking back on past charts on the Wetterzentrale site, prior to 2007 northern blocking during the summer months for any length of time was a rare beast.

OK, we had very unsettled summers in the medium past, particularly from 1985 to 1988 inclusive, but looking at the synoptic charts for those summers will show that pressure was also low over Greenland and Iceland for most of the time, with troughing over Ireland and the UK.

Since 2007, northern blocking has become a major player, with pressure frequently very high indeed for the time of year over Greenland and ridging into Iceland. This, with its consequent southerly tracking jet, has ruined the summer period to some extent in all of those years, put this year seems to be head and shoulders above the rest in terms of pure misery as regards summer weather. The following summaries refer to IMBY records:

2007 was bad, as regards temperatures and rain, but at least it was sunny.

2008 was a poor summer overall, but it had some notably fine days between the many unsettled spells.

2009 was a horrible summer, particularly July and August, but again there were some very nice days mixed in. June wasn't too bad either.

2010 had a wet July, but both June and August were OK, not great in terms of heat, but dry and reasonably sunny.

2011 had a wet June, but July and August were both drier and sunnier if cooler than average.

2012 has had no redeeming features at all so far; it's just day after day of cool, grey wet dross which would do your head in. Not so much as anything resembling a summer's day since May 26th, and that's not even in summer. Absolutely dire in every respect.

It really depends on where you are though. For instance, where I am "the sunny sth est" was colder but drier than average last year, and the west was wetter than average in most places. So far, this year, "the sunny sth est" has been far wetter than the west (which is unusual). Who knows what's to come, hopefully "the sunny sth est" will be back to it's former glory

Trogdor

I arrived in Iceland a few days ago and was talking to a local here who said there's been weeks of good weather here alright and that they're in need of rain at this stage. He didn't mention the last few summers though.

shootie

http://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/elements/#type=temp

Notice there how the island is consistently getting into the 17c range today and tomorrow (apart from the volcanoes) whilst we are getting these monsoon rains and significantly cooler temperatures.

Even on the BBC weather forecasts for both Dublin and Reykjavik tell us that apart from Saturday the latter is both warmer and drier (slightly) than Dublin.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/3413829
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2964574

Harps

Historic data in tabular form for various stations in Iceland here. I had a quick go at sticking Reykjavik's summer data into excel and generally the past 10 years look to be about 0.5C - 1C above average although MSLP doesn't seem particularly higher than normal. Only spent 10 minutes at it so the graphs might not be right, if anyone cares enough and has enough free time then feel free to make a proper effort of it!

http://en.vedur.is/climatology/data/

Su Campu

Guys, relax. We've only 1/3 of the summer gone. CorkMetman has shown that at least in the south the past few Julys and Augusts have not been too bad. We do seem to be going through a trend of of early summer unsettledness in the past few years but it hasn't been wall to wall rain for everyone every day either. This current pattern has been in place for a few weeks now but with as with all patterns, they break down eventually as the global wave setup shifts.

But anyway, our summers aren't meant to be the Mediterranean quality that a lot of people are seeking. We live where we live and that means that more often than not the sky will be cloudy and someone will be getting rain. That's our climate I'm afraid.

Calibos

Guys, relax. We've only 1/3 of the summer gone...

I seem to remember similar words being spoken back in December

bryaner

Birdnuts wrote: »

Apologies for the rather flippant title to this thread but I'm just inquiring if anyone has stats on recent summers in Iceland. As an amateur weather watcher it appears to me that Ireland has spent most of her summers since 06' stuck under or next to LP systems that should be much nearer Iceland at this time of year. In contrast our Northern cousins appear to be enjoying entended periods under HP cells during the summer monthts. Based on this I wonder how good their summers have been in recent years compared to averge??

What's unusual about this year is the UK are getting pure sh!te too, normally we do the sponge work for them..

Rebelbrowser

Su Campu wrote: »

Guys, relax. We've only 1/3 of the summer gone. CorkMetman has shown that at least in the south the past few Julys and Augusts have not been too bad. We do seem to be going through a trend of of early summer unsettledness in the past few years but it hasn't been wall to wall rain for everyone every day either. This current pattern has been in place for a few weeks now but with as with all patterns, they break down eventually as the global wave setup shifts.

But anyway, our summers aren't meant to be the Mediterranean quality that a lot of people are seeking. We live where we live and that means that more often than not the sky will be cloudy and someone will be getting rain. That's our climate I'm afraid.

Su, in winter you are a good man to see trends 2 or 3 weeks off (eg. you never bought into the continental freeze last winter getting to Ireland). What are your thoughts on the timing of the breakdown of the present god awful set up?

Su Campu

I'm on hols at the moment and don't have much access to info (I'm on my Kindle) but I would imagine that the pattern upstream will shift the Greenland block and instead allow an expansion of the Azores high. The warmth over the eastern US should be replaced by the seasonal trough, as is normal on the eastern half of continents in summer. Highs tend to dominate over the eastern parts of the oceans, but we've had the opposite now for a month.

I would guess that this would take a week or two so that maybe the last decade of July we could see a change. This could all be waffle as I haven't seen any charts but I think we've seen the current pattern for so long that a change is on the way.

irishgeo

Trogdor wrote: »

I arrived in Iceland a few days ago and was talking to a local here who said there's been weeks of good weather here alright and that they're in need of rain at this stage. He didn't mention the last few summers though.

can we start exporting our rain?

karlth

Living in Reykjavik there is no question that the summers have improved considerably in the last 10 years or so. This July for example has been superb and although we rarely get temps above 20 degrees it feels like Spain here although the temps are only 15 degrees on average. Dry and sunny.

Current weather and 5 day prediction: http://mbl.is/frettir/vedur/