How has the weather been this late spring and summer in the UK? Average? Wetter? Drier? Hotter? Colder? Showers of locusts or other oddities?

Here in New England we are having a record-matching gray, wet season so far. I leave for the Lake District and Yorkshire in two weeks and hope to see a bit of sun there.

you can check both upcoming and historic weather on wunderground.com and see what it is normally like, say a year ago, versus what it is now and what it is expected to be soon.

Overall, it's been hotter and drier than in recent years: back in April, the long range forecasts were predicting a drier than usual summer, and so far it seems to be happening!

This last weekend was glorious: on Saturday evening I was picknicking with hundreds of other opera-goers in the Sussex countryside, and on Sunday morning had a beautifully sunny walk along the Seven Sisters cliffs.

Weather in the Lake District can be notoriously changeable, and even if it's sunny everywhere else it can still be raining in the lakes... But the summer rainstorms are often short-lived.

Jonathan

Thanks for these replies. I am looking forward to the trip regardless but a bit of sun after this dreary spell here will be much welcomed.

Pushing up towards "Mad dogs and Englishmen" temperatures at the moment. Last Friday the hot weather broke with the most dramatic thunderstorm for a long time (but it was over and gone in half an hour): it's getting close enough for something similar this week, but who knows?

This is embarrassing to admit but I cannot tell the temperature in celsius, only farenheit. I did find several good weather sites online for the UK but none that offered a farenheit option. I don't want to do math every time I check. Any suggestions?

Ginny - you need to go to an American-based site like this one We use Celsius now but I still mentally convert every time to get the 'true' temperature!

Ginny - when I went to the Weather Underground site just now, it gave me temperatures in both Farenheit and Celsius. I also geat temperature readings in farenheit when using the US based weather.com.

Judy

Thanks for solving my problem. Bookmarked several of these sites.

It definitely seems as though the winters are warmer (as we hadly get snow anymore) and the summers are cooler and wetter. There seems to hadly be any difference now year round here in Wales bar a few degrees celsuis here and there.

The weather was lovely in spring up until the end of June. July was terrible. It was raining every day! The first few days of August have been rainiy with a couple of sunny days, but today the sun is shining!!! the weather forecast are good for the next week. Fingers crossed!

I just returned from two weeks in Yorkshire and the Lake District. The weather was not great but not a total wash-out either, except for a day or two.

We kept wondering if it was typical for the area, not known for fabulous weather. But BBC news reports at the end of July indicated a lot of grumbling by the Brits because they had been promised a "barbecue summer"--hot with lots of sun and outdoor activities--by long-range weather forecasters. Instead, they got cloudy, cool days with a lot of rain. And the same predicted for August. We'll see.

This summer has been terrible. We had 3 week heat wave in June but since then it has been very wet.

Normally everywhere is dry and brown at this time of the year, but this year our lawn is bright green and the grass is growing vigorously.

At least you had some nice days!

Eleanor