2018 has been a phenomenal year for weather enthusiasts with numerous events taking place in a short period of time from the Beast from the East to the Son of the Beast to the April heatwave and now Summer 2018. Summer 2018 has been the warmest and driest so far since 1995 for some and for others, even record breaking dry. This blog post will be going over all the available stats so far for Summer 2018. I will be incorporating May 2018 into this post also.
According to a blog post by the UK Met Office:
For the UK as a whole, the country has received 47mm of rain from 1 June to 16 July making it the driest start to Summer in modern records which date back to 1961. 2013 was the previous driest with 59mm of rain.
June 2018 was the third driest on record for England since 1910.
The average daily maximum temperature for the UK from 1 June to 16 July 2018 is 20.9°C. To emphasise how remarkable this is, the average daily maximum temperature for Summer 1976 (of course the hottest ever recorded) was 21.0°C. Even if the rest of the season ends up average, 2018 will most certainly rank within the top 10 warmest Summers on record for the UK or top 25 for the Central England Temperature (CET).
1 June to 16 July has recorded 385 hours of sunshine on average over the UK which comfortably fits it in the sunniest Summers on record for the period but still a long way to go for it to be a record breaker. For instance, 1976 from June 1 to 31 August had 669 hours of sunshine over the UK as a whole.
As a reminder, May 2018 was the warmest (back to 1910) and sunniest (back to 1929) May on record for the UK beating 1989 in both departments. It was also the driest May since 1991. For Ireland, May 2018 was generally not as sunny as May 2016 or May 2017 but it was also the driest here since 1991. It was the warmest May since 2008 in Ireland. The maximum temperature of 26.3°C at Shannon Airport on May 29th was Ireland's highest May temperature since 2012. Shannon Airport recorded a record breaking run of 18 days with a maximum temperature successfully reaching 20°C or more from May 23rd to June 9th which broke its previous record of 15 days from June 2nd to 16th 1970 for so early in the season. Its second record was 13 days from May 28th to June 9th 2016 which is a more comparable record because it incorporated some of May unlike the 1970 record. The table below shows these spells and other similar warm spells of 20°C or more at Shannon Airport since its records began for so early in the season. I have also added the actual maximum temperature and mean maximum temperature for Shannon Airport during each of the spells. The criteria I had for this table was minimum 5 consecutive days with 20°C or more.
There was a warm spell for the Easter period of 1984 at the station which had 6 consecutive days of 20°C or more from April 23rd to 28th. Conversely, there was a warm spell of such for 7 consecutive days at Shannon Airport from September 25th to October 1st 1985.
These were the Ireland stats of the May-June 2018 spell before we get onto the heatwave below. Here's the absolute maximum temperatures map for all Irish synoptic stations during the period May 23 to June 10 2018.
Here's a table of the daily sunshine totals (hours) from May 22 to June 12 2018 at 6 Irish stations which record sunshine.
Dublin Airport had 191.3 hours of sun during this period with an average of 8.7 hours of sun per day! The period was 22 days long and 191.3 hours of sun is a bit more than what a whole May average sunshine is at the station. The last sunny period that I can find comparable to this is July 2013 which had 197.2 hours of sun at the station from the 4th-25th July whilst 1st-11th (though only 11 days long) May 2017 had 145.5 hours of sunshine at Belmullet, around 3/4 of its whole monthly May average sunshine.
The final June 2018 stats revealed that:
It was the warmest June on record for Northern Ireland and Wales back to 1910.
It was the 4th warmest June on record for England and Scotland back to 1910.
It was the 3rd warmest June on record for the UK back to 1910.
It was the warmest June on record at the Irish station Claremorris with a mean temperature of 15.4°C beating its previous record of 14.9°C in June 1970 (records began in 1943).
It was the equal warmest June for the CET (with 2003) since 1976 with a mean temperature of 16.1°C.
It was the warmest June on record at the Irish station Shannon Airport with a mean temperature of 17.0°C easily beating its previous record of 16.0°C in June 1970 (records began in 1939).
The average daily maximum temperature for the UK was 19.9°C equalling that of June 1976.
The maximum temperature for June 2018 was 33.0°C at Porthmadog, Wales on the 28th which was not as high as June 2017's maximum of 34.5°C at Heathrow on the 21st. However, this was Wales' highest June temperature since 1976.
It was the 4th sunniest June on record (since 1929) for the UK behind only June 1957, 1940 and 1957.
It was the fifth sunniest June on record for Northern Ireland and England, third sunniest on record for Wales and fourth sunniest on record for Scotland.
16.0 hours of sunshine at the Irish station Knock Airport on the 24th made it the sunniest day on record here since its records began in 1997.
16.5 hours of sunshine at the Irish station Malin Head on the 28th made it the sunniest day ever recorded in Ireland.
It was the driest May/June combination on record for Dublin Airport with 23.9mm easily beating the previous record of 44.8mm in 1970. Though there were variations during the period, the warm spell or heatwave generally lasted from 24 June to 14 July and the sunny spell began on 21 June. This was the longest such spell of weather in Ireland since 1995. The sunny period was a total of 24 days and featured extraordinary sunshine totals for Ireland (stats are not in for the UK yet). Valentia Observatory and Cork Airport on top for sunshine from 21 June to 14 July 2018 (24-day period) with totals of 273.3 (11.4 hours per day on average) and 270.9 hours (11.3 hours per day on average) respectively. Don't know if that's record breaking but surely it must be near record breaking because those kinds of totals would be mad in a 30 or 31-day period, never mind 24 days - not even a full month!
Here's a graph of the daily maximum temperatures for selected Irish stations from 21 June to 14 July 2018. 32.0°C at Shannon Airport on June 28th was the maximum temperature for Ireland during the spell making it the hottest day in Ireland since 19 July 2006 and hottest June day since 1976.
This map shows the maximum temperature for Irish stations from 24 June to 14 July 2018.
Other stats for the June-July 2018 heatwave in Ireland
A heatwave occurs where there are 5 consecutive days or more with maximum temperature of 25°C or more. Official heatwaves were recorded at fifteen synoptic stations this year (see table below by Met Éireann). This table is not of every stations' heatwave since 2000. For example, Oak Park had a heatwave from 17 to 21 June 2017 like Kilkenny in the table below but it is not mentioned. It's worth noting that Oak Park's heatwave would be 17 days long if it weren't for the station failing to reach 25°C by 0.1°C on 5th July.
This table is one I made on the heatwaves that the Irish stations of Birr, Kilkenny, Oak Park and Shannon Airport have recorded up to 2017.
Since 1940, 2018 has recorded the second highest June temperature in Ireland as shown by the table below which shows the highest June temperatures per decade in Ireland since the 1940s.
An absolute drought involves minimum 15 consecutive days with 0.2mm of rainfall or less. Current soil moisture deficits range from 60-95mm, highest in the midlands and east of Ireland, 75mm and above represent drought conditions. 2018 has recorded two absolute droughts in Ireland; first one was May-June 2018 and the second one was June-July 2018. The table below from Met Éireann shows the absolute droughts in Ireland for 2018 up to the 11th July. The last time there were drought conditions in Ireland was April-May 2017 in the midlands and the west.
In terms of the UK, according to Dan Holley on Twitter, Brooms Barn in Suffolk has seen 0mm of rain for 45 consecutive days up to 16th July 2018. Some people have reported that they have not had rain since 9th May but as the stats aren't in to show that, this is currently exaggeration to me. The longest absolute droughts I know of are 73 days at Mile End, London in Spring 1893, 56 days in eastern England from August to October 1959 and 50 days in Kent from July to September 1947.
Summer 2018 is full of interest, that's for sure!
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