Don't You Just Love the British Summer ?

[BobClay]

July 2017

[Gulpers]

Yep, sadly it is becoming a traditional summer feature nowadays!
We are moving house on Tuesday and at this rate the removal company will be using a landing craft or hovercraft, not a forty foot HGV.

[Kevjacko]

Speaks volumes the outside storeage area I am building in the garden at the moment remains 2 of 3 hours off completion because the weather has been lousy last 2 weekends and no better this one.

[Naytikos]

I thought British Summer had been abolished years ago.

[Tom Alexander]

Here in British Columbia, a tourist asked me a week ago if we ever got summer here ----- I replied "Yes, I believe last year it was on a Tuesday."

[BobClay]

Bob Hope cracked a British weather joke to American troops he was entertaining during the D Day build up.

"I like having seasons ... just not all four of them in the same day."

[Farmer John]

Out checking livestock today, home soaked to the skin, misjudged how quickly the rain would come. I can report, the rain is quite warm so it must be Summer.
I enjoy a good walk in the rain, my waterproof defences got left, when I am back at home, camera in a bag with a drying sachet, change of clothes, boots full of newspaper, all is right.

[mary75]

#5, Tom, what's with this,"no summer in Nanaimo?"
We've had very little rain here in Vancouver this past month of July. Or was the tourist referring to smoke from the forest fires?
My brother, returning by ferry to Horseshoe Bay from Nanaimo, said you couldn't see the Coast Mountains because of the smoke.

[BobClay]

I usually walk around Tamar Lake 3 or 4 times a week and over the last two or three months the lake level has been getting lower and lower (it's a reservoir lake created behind a dam on the River Tamar.) At the top mud flats appeared and these had actually grassed over !! much to the delight of the Canadian Geese that live there. In fact I've never seen it that low, a good four or five feet below the dam spillover.

Then last week we got a couple of days of thunderstorms and their torrential downpours and I was very surprised last Sunday to see the lake spilling over the dam, the mud flats all disappeared and the Carp fishermen all having to back up onto the banks. Not something you expect in late July.

More rain today, I can practically hear my lawn growing. The synoptic chart looks more like February or March than July ...

http://www.newquayweather.com/wxisobars.php

[Farmer John]

The Barograph seems to have gone skiing.

[Tom Alexander]

Originally Posted by mary75

#5, Tom, what's with this,"no summer in Nanaimo?"
We've had very little rain here in Vancouver this past month of July. Or was the tourist referring to smoke from the forest fires?
My brother, returning by ferry to Horseshoe Bay from Nanaimo, said you couldn't see the Coast Mountains because of the smoke.

Mary, bear with me --- I didn't say NO summer. My remark was very tongue in cheek -- actually Southern Vancouver Island has had no measurable rainfall so far this July, but it has been somewhat cooler, and with some intermittent cloud cover. I do remember some months of July in the past though where there were daily high temperatures in the high 20's to low 30's with not a vestige of cloud anywhere to be seen. Then again, I remember one August in the early 1980's, sailing from Ganges on Saltspring Island down to Bedwell Harbour where it rained all the way and we collected over 3 gallons of rain running off the main boom.

[woodend]

Sorry but I can't help the northern summer but here we have the most wonderful winters day. crystal clear and warmed uo from 8* to almost 19*. Everywh3re desperately needs rain!!!!!!!

[mary75]

Tom, question: From your Vancouver Island viewpoint, can you see the smoke over the Mainland from the forest fires in the Interior?

[Gulpers]

Originally Posted by Gulpers

Yep, sadly it is becoming a traditional summer feature nowadays!
We are moving house on Tuesday and at this rate the removal company will be using a landing craft or hovercraft, not a forty foot HGV.

Well, British Summer!!!
Loaded wagon on Tuesday in Wales in brilliant sunshine and unloaded on Wednesday in Scotland in continuous torrential rain. Would you believe that in the afternoon, as soon as the removal men started the wagon to return south, the rain stopped and the sun put in an appearance.
We had to run the central heating last night to dry our effects out!

[Tom Alexander]

Originally Posted by mary75

Tom, question: From your Vancouver Island viewpoint, can you see the smoke over the Mainland from the forest fires in the Interior?

Hi! Mary ---- Haven't noticed any -- the Coast Mountains are high enough to obscure the interior where the fires are, and quite often the peaks are capped with cumulus even further obscuring any view inland.

For many years, however, there has been a noticeable "smeech" on most summer days, expecially when there is a South-Easterly breeze, essentially spreading from the First Narrows area, up the coast past Sechelt. Looks like pollution from the metropolitan Vancouver area.

Tom.

[mary75]

Thanks, Tom, for your observations. Vancouver has been having some hazy days, so this morning I checked, via Google, the air quality for the past few days and read that it is smoke from the Interior. It is also drifting into Alberta. Australian fire fighters have been brought in to help.
I know the smudge you refer to. It used to make me cringe when I came in on the ferry from a trip to Saturna Island to think I would soon be breathing that junk.
I hadn't realized it is showing as far north as Sechelt. Last summer there was a huge forest fire north of Roberts Creek that polluted the Sunshine Coast.

[Dartskipper]

British Summer, AKA British Columbian Summer.......

As long as the days are sunny and bright in August when I go back to Devon for a few days, the weather can please itself. In our climate, if you don't like the weather we are currently enjoying, (enduring?), wait a couple of hours and it will be completely different!

[BobClay]

Wasn't it Charles Warner who, via Mark Twain, said: "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." ?

[Bob Smith]

Went down to Portsmouth yesterday to see the US carrier in Stokes Bay.. dull, wet & cold

British summer at its best

[Tom Alexander]

Regarding British weather generally, I think this just about sums it up!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eT40eV7OiI

[BobClay]

Originally Posted by Tom Alexander

Regarding British weather generally, I think this just about sums it up!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eT40eV7OiI

SPOT ON !!

[BobClay]

"I don't believe it !!"

I'm going into Victor Meldrew mode because the rain right now is so torrential it's knocking out the signal on the satellite TV box !!

(Loud sounds of swearing and abuse from Cornwall.)

[sibby]

Here in good old North Norfolk we are basking in sunshine, the temp here has been averaging 20-29 degrees for a week or two. We have on several occasions been promised amber warning rain and thunder that has not happened. Although Friday and Saturday night we had a bit of rain.

[Tom Alexander]

Hi! Mary -- if you're still on -- today was particularly clear across the Strait and yes, there did appear to be a smoke haze faintly visible above the Coast Mountains -- no cloud to obstruct the view.

[mary75]

Tom, yes, and today it's even worse with an air quality warning. The sun appears red in a hazy grey sky from the smoke coming south from the forest fires in the Interior and north from a new fire in Washington State.