Wychwood weather: July and August 2020

This report is more factual and less descriptive than previous versions, drawing on the charts below. As you can see from the tables, July was slightly wetter than normal by about 4mm and spot on average for temperature with the only real hotspot being on the last day of month with a maximum temperature of 34.6°C. Both July and August have been dominated by an ever-increasing mobile Atlantic airstream (jetstream) that gained momentum and moved further south towards the end of August with some notably windy spells and heavy rain towards the end of the period. August itself started very dry and hot with a breakdown on the 12th with heavy rain and thunderstorms and some associated squally winds.

Although temperatures in London and the South East were almost record breaking (38C), unlike them, we had more influence from the west rather than continental Europe. While we missed most of the ‘Super Storms’ that affected a lot of the UK, we still managed a few lightning strikes and squalls (e.g. the problem caused by lightning at the Milton Coop). It was almost like three hot days and a thunderstorm, but 2020 was somewhat different to previous summers. Normally the Atlantic storms start to form and affect the UK in the autumn rather than mid-August. The area around the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico has witnessed sea temperatures of up to 3°C higher than normal which exacerbates the intensity and formation of tropical storms and hurricanes. These eventually lose their power and come across the Atlantic as autumn depressions that normally move to the north west of Scotland. This year’s timescale meant that storms accompanied by a fierce Jetstream arrived much earlier than expected.

I do have a vast amount of data covering these two months, and although it comes in large spreadsheets, I would willingly supply it via email should anyone wish; my contact details are below.

What has the last quarter of 2020 to offer in terms of weather – in my opinion, much of the same as we experienced in August, with greater fluctuations of temperature and rainfall than we have seen in the past. Overall, a bit wetter and warmer than average, interspersed with a few arctic plunges.

John Miskin
john@johnmiskin.com

October-November 2020