The New Weather; UK Patterns 2007-2012 by Mike Rigby, CEO, March 2012

Intro Since having children, I started to note a pattern in the weather. When your holidays begin to be set by the school calendar, it becomes easier to spot seasonal changes. My memory seemed to suggest that year after year, we were seeing warm, dry springs, particularly April and much wetter summers, particularly July, the first month of the school summer holidays. Of course, this experience is based largely on my normal location, Somerset, but nevertheless 2011 seemed to me to be the fifth warm, dry spring in a row. A search of Met Office data confirmed that this was largely the case across England, not just Somerset. Figure 1 shows the actual rainfall for April as a percentage of the long term average for that month. Only once in the period has rainfall exceeded the longterm average (113% in 2008) and the period is neatly bookended by years when rainfall was just 20% of the longterm average.

Figure 1 April Rainfall in England as a Percentage of the Longterm Average Now examine the data for July in the same time range and the picture is startling with every year over the long-term average and two years seeing more than twice the average rainfall.

Figure 2 July Rainfall in England as a Percentage of the Longterm Average This pattern of altered rainfall is set against a background of rising temperatures. Mean temperatures in April have shown marked increases, of up to 4%, with July mean temperatures typically at or slightly below the long term average.

Figure 3 Mean Temperatures differences against Long-term Average (0) Conclusions What does all this mean? Well, 5 years straight of warm dry, springs, followed by cooler, wetter summers does seem indicative of a trend. Statisticians and climatologists will take a longer view before stating that there has been a permanent shift in Englands weather. However, some of the normal variability does seem to have disappeared from our weather patterns. Before this 5-year period, you could count on pretty much any kind of weather at any time of year; there were huge fluctuations from year-to-year. One summer would be a heatwave, the next a

washout. Now we seem to get the washout every year; no more hot, dry summers but, as some recompense, the spring is becoming exceptionally warm and dry. It is difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint exactly what causes individual extreme weather events or patterns. It has been suggested that shrinking sea ice in the Arctic could be causing these longer periods of anticyclonic spring weather in the UK. Others suggest that the location of the Jet Steam, fast-moving winds in the upper atmosphere, govern these changes. We dont yet have full figures for March 2012, or obviously July, but early indications are that this will be the sixth warm, dry spring in a row. Anyone want to bet that we wont need umbrellas rather than parasols this summer?

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