Are Mid-20C Temperatures In May Unusual
By Paul Homewood
What an utterly absurd question!
https://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/2022/05/17/are-mid-20c-temperatures-in-may-unusual/
Temperatures in the mid 20s in the South East may be common in May, but probably not in Cromarty. Trying to compare data from different stations is like comparing chalk and cheese.
Despite the desperate attempt by the Met Office to invoke climate change, little has really changed in terms of hot May days over the years, for instance in Oxford:
Maximum May Daily Temperatures by Year
https://climexp.knmi.nl/selectdate.cgi
The hottest days in May there were in 1944 and 1947, when temperatures peaked at 30.6C.
As we seem to see throughout the year, temperatures are not really rising at the top end, but at the bottom end instead.
Some years in the past were so cold in May that temperatures did not get above 19C throughout the month. In the last couple of decades, this sort of prolonged cool weather has been rare. Indeed the data shows that the range of temperatures, from cold to hot, is now much less extreme.
We can see this better by looking at the lowest daily temperatures in May. These quite clearly show a steady rise:
The Met Office would like you to think this is a climate catastrophe, and that we are all going to burn up.
Most people would think this is very benign.
As noted, May 1944 saw the record hottest day in Oxford, and indeed the UK as a whole:
Notably however, May 1944 as a whole was close to average temperatures, with two extremely cold spells and heavy frost. Temperatures dropped to just 22F in England, an astonishingly low figure by any account.
This was extreme weather in anybody’s books. And you will no doubt recall that just a week after that heatwave, the weather became extremely stormy as D Day came and went:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I don’t live 20 miles from Heathrow but, needless to say, we got nothing like 27C on that day. 23C more like. This proves again that Heathrow figures are meaningless – utterly inappropriate and unreliable due to their obvious UHI-type issues. How the Met Office can keep a straight face using Heathrow figures I shall never know.
Maybe because all the people they talk to live in the same groupthink bubble? 8
It s easier to smile and keep a straight face when you are lying through your teeth!
“we got nothing like 27C on that day.”
That’s because you didn’t have a 747 to stand behind with your thermometer.
Kew Gardens shows 26 degrees for that Monday. Difficult to take Heathrow seriously.
Since we’re heading for 14c here on Monday, I’m not worrying about heatsroke!
So 81.5°F is bad?
What exactly are they complaining about? Do Brits just hate good weather?
Exactly, there is virtuallyy nobody here complaining about the mild temperatures. God knows what sort of people inhabit the “jobs” at the Met office but they sure as hell ain’t representative of the rest of us.
Why is it always Heathrow? It’s a big airport full of big hot aeroplanes!
“Why is it always Heathrow? Because it gives incorrect figures that support their false argument. If you think Heathrow is bad consider what the Met Office quote as the highest temperature ever recorded in Scotland. It was in 2003 at a site known as Greycrook that was only installed in 1999 and was removed in 2005 for giving consistently incorrect readings.
And yet they still claim this atrocious site set the “record” YCMIU
Warmists lie. Call me when we have hippos in the Thames, like the Neanderthals.
Heathrow Airport! This is an old trick to exaggerate the ‘ambient’ temperature. The Stevenson Screened thermometers, will still register heat from jet engines on full throttle at take off and reverse thrust when braking on landing. To compound this even more, the tarmac/asphalt runways will add even more heat energy!
To summarise: Not fit for purpose!
Here in Cumbria we have had one or two days this month when the temperature has briefly limped up to 20C, but mostly daily highs have been in the range of 13-15C, with nothing higher forecast for the rest of the month.
Hear hear! We are 10 degrees below “normal” and have been for two months.
On the there website the Heathrow station is shown as trapped between the A4 and a main runway. Which is contrary to there own location requirements.
Heathrow maximum temperatures during heatwaves are generally higher than those at nearby (6 miles away) RAF Northolt, but only by about 1C. Note that for the very warmest days the temperatures at the 2 locations were very close for recent heatwaves, pouring some cold water on the notion that Heathrow data is biased by jet engines.
The 17th May temperature at Northolt should be available soon (tomorrow?) via the GSOD database
The highest temperature recorded at RAF Northolt on 17th May was 78.8F, which is 26C, this was obtained via the following link, which provides recent sub-daily weather station info, very useful for checking claims of records:
https://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/03772
Scroll down to the bottom of the page, which lists nearby stations. There are links for last 7, 14 etc days of data. Curiously, many of them don’t have data for the afternoon of the 17th (how about that for a conspiracy theory?).
One degree is an awful lot when we are talking about fractions of aa degree”
Northolt is another criminally badly sited weather station (when used to assess climate change) and it frequently appears in the hot list. It’s another airbase full of concrete and tarmac and closely cropped grass in the middle of West London uhi. Just a bit less concrete than Heathrow!
It is noticeable that super hot sites like Heathrow generally stand out less the hotter it is.
Jolly cold and wet in London on Friday. If climate change means less of that in the future, then bring it on!
Another O/T article.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2022/05/21/blow-wind-power-revolution-grid-struggles-keep/
Apparently there is a queue, which extends in to 2028 in some cases, to get renewable projects connected to the Grid. Who’d have thought?
If the Government had been following this site if would have realised the problem years ago. Never mind, the Government is used to having a wish list which turns out to have major flaws. Net Zero seems to be getting further and further away. Shame.
Can’t find a link to an actual article, but BBC news has been pre-announcing an historic early Spanish heatwave and asking the question is it the start of a series of deadly heatwaves!
I guess they got bored with India now it is mostly cooler than average. The ambulance chase continues. The world has actually cooled overall in the last few days.
The Central England Temperature series five year mean for Spring plotted in green from 1660 – 2020 CE exhibits considerable variation but no perceptible long term warming trend let alone a ‘climate crisis ‘ https://judithcurry.com/2018/03/03/the-rise-of-central-england-temperatures-part-ii/
Heathrow Airport! Are they serious!
“Inevitably with climate change in everyone’s mind”! What a ludicrus and fatuous statement!
How do they know what is in everyone’s mind? I would suggest I know…like how am I going to be able to afford my electricity bill next winter is very much on peoples minds!
What arrogant delusional people they are.
They are not in the business of “moulding ” opinion but that is clearly what they are doing. That has nothing whatsoever to do with science and nothing at all to do with their remit. They are a politically contaminated and broken organization pushing a left wing political narrative.
“Inevitably with climate change in everyone’s mind”!”
Nudge, nudge!
“Nudge, nudge!”
Wink, wink!
Of course, the best joke of that Monty Python skit came at the end:
Dirty little man: “Have you ever had sex? Nudge, nudge!”
Middle aged man being chaffered “Of course I have!”
Dirty little man: “Oh! …[Goes quietl]… What’s it like?”
I sometimes wonder what real global warming would be like.
The public has a right to expect scientific integrity and objectivity from a taxpayer funded scientific organisation. The MO frequently reminds us that it lacks these qualities.
Max temp recorded at a local weather station here in Bournemouth so far in May is 21.4C. Only one other day over 20. Nothing unusual at all. As for measurements taken at Heathrow – what a joke.
The heatwave is getting me down. Here in Cumbria today we had at least three consecutive minutes of 60F (15C) temperatures. SWMBO has just lit a fire. Cheaper than oil/electricity out here in the sticks.
You can get a ton of slack delivered for £300. At about 8.5kWh per kg @30p it works out at 3.5p per kWh. That’s actually now one of the cheaper fuels around!
I’ll just drop this here:
Very interesting. I am in the ‘open country’ south of Croydon and east of Gatwick Airport. I regularly see a temperature change on my car thermometer of 4 or 5 degC when travelling just into the temperature rings west of Croydon. On the airport subject, I have seen a 4 degC rise from my house to Gatwick 8 miles away and then back down again.
I generally observe a heat island temperature difference of 2 – 3 deg. C on entering the small town pop. ~2,550 where I reside in the Dales!
I’d like to see their data for those averages for £earliest hot day”. Why use 1991 as the date i wonder? And what happens if you change the 30 year periods you use? It’s far too easy to play games with these periods that the Met Office and the BBC love so much. Surely there ought to just be a trend they can show? Why do it like that?
For ‘the UK’ read: ‘Heathrow’ 🥱
The period 1961-90, one of the coldest periods of the 20th Century. Guaranteed to give “global warming” every time.
Zoom in on the marker https://www.google.com/maps/place/51°28'45.0“N+0°27’02.0″W/@51.4792702,-0.4504,466m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x9dc855a2d40fae54!8m2!3d51.4791667!4d-0.4505556
The Met Office consider that an acceptable site. Pathetic isn’t it.
To add to my comment on the Met Offuce comparing two 30 year periods rather than simply showing a trend across the sixty year periods, this implicitly acknowledges that warming has been in steps rather than continuous. The later period has significant El Ninos which clearly have an effect, and the period including 1960-75 includes significant cooling. In other words, its more Met Office fraud.
So in fact this is evide
In the days before the Chinese-made US funded Covid virus escaped, on the May Communism Celebration Bank Holiday weekend we had a shire horse show. In successive years we had it so hot the birds of prey demonstration was reduced to save the birds and then so cold you needed gloves and a scarf.
The following weekend we have an excellent Cowpie young farmers show where a local vineyard owner sells his wine. He said things were going well this year but we were not safe yet. As well he might, as a few years back we had a sharp and damaging frost the week after the show!
It it worth remembering that the MetO is now a political organisation that is part of BEIS.
Just for a laugh here are the Met office site requirements for weather stations.
Ideal site
Level ground.
No trees; buildings, or steep ground nearby that might influence the measurements.
Undesirable site
Warming effect of buildings on the measurement of temperature
Sheltering or shading effects of trees on the measurement of sunshine and wind.
Frost hollow where overnight temperatures on still clear nights may be far lower than at neighbouring locations.
Top of a hill or steep escarpment where winds will be unrepresentative of the wider area.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/how-forecasts-are-made/observations/weather-stations
So that has ruled out most of the Met Office official sites then!
When I grew up in Rhyl during the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s the open air pool opened on the 7th of May and we kids fought over being first in. The temperature on that day was consistently 57 to 59 deg F and by June had reached the low 60s (deg F) . From the mid 1950s the temperatures started dropping dramatically till by the 1990s the water was intolerably cold all summer and the pool closed (replaced by car parking!).
The only weather data that matter are expressed only at the extremes of the Ferkin’ Scale. Weather is only ever too Ferkin’ot or too Ferkin’cold (colloquialy Brass Monkeys) and always Ferkin’ wet. All other conditions are termed “nice”,as in “its nice for May”.
The last time May had a temperature above 25C at LHR was 19th May 2014. Since then there has not been any May day above 25C. This coincides with the 7 years cooling period currently being experienced. The nearest to 25C came on 19th May 2019 at 24.4C.
Will the next week break the (almost) straight line down for the high for May from 29C iin 2012 to near 23C this year, 2022, so far ?
Funny how the Barcelona GP and a few days of hot weather last week make the headlines, yet now when the temperatures have sunk to well below average between Madrid and Barca, no one notices.
We are still here in Cumberland 10 degrees below “normal” nearing the end of the month and only 4 weeks from the longest day.