Autumn 2021 - General Discussion

I think one small mercy to be had is the relatively short days now, so we don't have to bear witness to that low gun metal grey, colour zapping overhang for too long that looks as if it is bringing rain, and given how saturated the ground is, you swear it was, but actually isn't.

If I had the means, I'd nuke that parasitical Azores high, numerous times if necessary, into oblivion. It is a constant menace to the Irish weather, regardless of what season we are in.

2021 I've enjoyed a lot of as of this point, especially knowing how much worse it has been over the other side where southeast England has had a pretty miserable year relatively speaking.

The winter was pretty mixed. Some great individual wintery days and we were just unlucky with February easterly, Scotland had its coldest February night since 1955 which was pretty extreme with notably deep snow cover. Quite boring wind wise, very uneventful in that regard.

Loved the spring which I know is an unpopular opinion on here. March was pretty boring but often pleasant after the largely cloudy first two weeks so I didn't mind it. The freezing fog at the start was cool though. April was amazing, one of my favourite months ever. The combination of very dry and sunny but cold with so many frosty nights/mornings was a unique experience for the time of year. I prefer it to be warmer in April as much as the next guy but man it was such a beautiful month. May I also really enjoyed. May was definitely not boring, a fair bit of thundery or convective days, notable frosts at the start and despite being universally wet, it was also sunny. Thanks be to God it finally warmed up by the 29th May though as the cool weather was becoming a bit much by that point. 30th May was a spectacular day in particular.

June I found ok, nothing outstanding. Dry, average sunshine and relatively warm but not exceptionally so. July was quite polarising, a poor start and end but an epic middle to late third with that heatwave which was by far my highlight of the year. It felt like a free sun holiday, which I haven't done in 7 years. Most of August was just August being its usual dismal self but most of the final week turned the tables and was the best August weather I had seen in years with plentiful sunshine and coastal fog too at times which made things interesting.

This autumn, whilst it hasn't been a bad one, has been very very bland however and I haven't seen a season as boring as this probably since Winter 2018-19. It has just been persistently mild and in Dublin, dry. As usual, we escaped a lot of the rain during October. Least the autumn colours are finally popping at the moment with many leaves still on trees.

I've definitely preferred it overall over 2020 (and 2019) as of this point, although Spring 2020 was easily the best of all.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if we got another exceptional heatwave next summer. On average, we get them every 7 years or so, but we seem to have been locked into the pattern since that one in July which I don't think we'll shake off too easily; we certainly haven't yet.

My biggest memory of 2021 will be the consistently warm, humid and breezeless nights for the last 4 months now. Don't recall anything much about last winter or spring that stood out.

Tornado in Vancouver just recently.

We have a Ceanothus hedge out the front and it has started to bloom its beautiful lilac blue flowers again. Its normal bloom time is between May and June and this is the first time I have ever seen this happening in November.

The way things are going this year, I'd not be surprised if we recorded a 25c somewhere this coming December or January.

Can really feel the chill of the upper single figures tonight outside. 🥶

You must be thinking of 2013, before the loss in rainfall was more than made up for by the deluge winter of 2013-14. Widespread places had less than 50% of their average November rainfall. Autumn colours were also spectacular that month thanks to the combination of weather events that year.

We used to discuss getting snow at Christmas. The way it's shaping up we'll be discussing whether we get frost before Christmas!

Interesting question, although I don't think the cold spell will go entirely pear shaped and the month seems likely to finish up around 7.5 C with 9.4 likely out of reach. But as there are no Irish temperature data available from the length of the CET records, I had a look at those to see how close any November ever came to being warmer than either the preceding or following May.

There was one November (1817, 9.1) that was warmer than the preceding May (8.6). That November was also warmer than October (a very cold 6.4) and the April of the same year (7.6) and so ranked as high as a November could rank as fifth warmest month of 1817. The normal rank is eighth.

In the rest of the data set, the closest that November came to being warmer than the preceding May was in 1994 (10.1 vs 10.7) and 1821 (8.6 vs 9.4) and also of note in recent decades, 1938 (9.4 vs 10.7) which was tied by 2015 (9.5 vs 10.8). Those more recent cases were among the five warmest Novembers on record competing with rather average Mays.

The closest November came to being warmer than the next May was 1743 (9.3 vs 10.8 for May 1744) equalled in 1978-79 (8.5 Nov 78 vs 10.0 May 79) and again in 1994-95 when the warmest Nov (10.1) was followed by a rather average May 1995 (11.6). It should be noted that Nov 94 was a full degree warmer than May 1996.

There have been Novembers milder than the coldest Mays. In the 363 years of the CET records, 33 were equal to or colder than second warmest November 2011 (9.6) and another thirty equal to or colder than Nov 1994 (10.1); however a lot of those cold Novembers were in the Maunder minimum portion when November was generally in the 4 to 7 range. And there have been 13 Novembers warmer than coldest May 1698 (8.5) as well as six equal to it, then eleven of them also warmer than second coldest 1740 (8.6) and nine warmer than third coldest 1817 (8.7) which is the one May that was ever surpassed by its following November.

November has often been colder than the March of the same year also, although its 30-year running average has always been slightly higher in the CET records. November can be the coldest month of both the calendar year (it happened in these six years -- 1851, 1862, 1910, 1915, 1921 and 1923) in addition to three years where Nov tied as coldest month (1702, 1750 and 1993), and it can be coldest in the winter half-year (there have been nine such winters, last happening in generally mild 1988-89 when the 5.2 of Nov 1988 was as cold as it got, but more notably in 1919 (3.6) for the winter of 1919-20 with the coldest weather of that winter season in the second week of November, can you imagine the epic disappointment for weather weenies today if that happened now?). All of the other nine winters were more distant than 1919-20 and included the winters following the first four listed as coldest of their years, so that 1851, 1862, 1910 and 1915 hold both titles. However, Nov 1942 was equal to Jan 1943 in a rather average winter.

Perhaps one of the readers of this thread with access to Irish data could check in particular the years mentioned since 1900 as those might be more easily compared. The two data sets are often similar in their results but never identical of course.

Finally a first taste of winter perhaps later this month...

Things look colder from Sunday anyway.

Hopefully something similar to the late nov 2005 spell.