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@ 08/07/09 – 09:46:33
I might be misremembering things, but it seems to me that summer weather wasn't as erratic 30 years ago as it is now. There were downpours as you would expect and occasional washed out weeks, but it just seems so much more changeable now. Almost minute by minute the weather is different.
So is my memory faulty or is it Climate Change?
My new lens arrived yesterday so if it's not too rainy I'll be out and about to see what I can get!
Cheers, Tom.
tylluanpenry
SeasideMan
Pro Thanks, my memory doesn't go back that far! Your mum's memory seems to fit my thinking, with things being more predictable in the past.
Tom.
playwrite27
It's the same here, as well. You could always know what to expect from the weather, season to season..now? It's really strange to see that our weather pattern here has changed so drastically, seemingly almost overnight, but age of the world standards. Used to be storms always came west to east--now more and more frequently, our storms are coming up south to north. Something's shifted, that's for sure.
SeasideMan
Pro Thanks Nancy, I'm glad it's not just me then. So it seems to be in the USA too. Hmm.
Tom.
At the risk of sounding facetious...."Can we say our memories also tend to be changeable"....hopefully, not too much too soon! 
SeasideMan
Pro That's a good point, and it needed mentioning. There is a tendency to view the past through rose-tinted glasses and remember things how we want to remember things rather than as they were, to ignore the bad bits just as we forget all the terrible pop music we have heard in our lives.
I had a quick look for a study on this but I couldn't find one. There are loads of studies on long-term temperature trends and that sort of thing, but I couldn't find a thing on changeability of weather during a day.
Tom.
I have a vague recollection of reading about 'weather patterns' some where. I'm sure there will be 'studies' available. Must be...because, as you know, long term predictions will rely on studies of past patterns..
SeasideMan
Pro That's true about long-term predictions being based on past patterns, but I suspect accurate and comprehensive data doesn't go back more than 20 years or so because of the stone-age computers in use back then!
Have you checked the records of the Weather Centre?
SeasideMan
Pro When I worked at the Environment Agency, I used to look after the computers that stored the Met Office data. They stored snapshots - this number of hours sunshine today, this much rainfall, the river was this high, etc. etc. Data for changeability within a day simply wasn't recorded.
There were all sorts of trend and historical reports that could be done, but there was simply no data for this sort of thing. I think the most likely answer would come from an eccentric who spent the last 60 years writing in notebooks on the weather!
Tom.
Its strange, but I was only saying this today. I remember summers being summery when I was a child. Sunshine, blue skies and thunder storms. Winter was cold, grey, snowy! Autumn was a riot of colour, spring was fresh, showery and full of bird song.
Now the seasons are all smudged and blurred. If you were a stranger here you wouldn't know what season it was today!
SeasideMan
Pro Exactly - I'm glad I'm not imagining it!
Tom.
DominicGee
Welcome to Britain.
AmethystLady
Pro Climate change.....xxxxxx
SeasideMan
Pro You could just be right Kelly...
banana
Pro I remember riding my bicycle in the back garden in Swansea on Christmas day wearing a summer dress and the weather was sunny and warm! There is a picture of it somewhere. I was about 7 so that was 40 years ago.
I remember it snowing in May in Pontypridd when I was in my 20's.
I remember one Summer hols in Budleigh Salterton in my teens, when it rained like the monsoon and was warm enough to swim in the sea on the same day. It changed between the two over the two weeks we were there and I also remember gale force winds.
So I think it has always been like it.
SeasideMan
Pro I agree, there have always been freaks. In the 1970s I remember it snowing in June once. It's the rapidity of switchover from bad to good that I'm thinking of specifically here. But as I noted, I could be suffering from faulty memory syndrome!
MissyMouse
Our family always booked the holiday for the first week of June. It never seemed to rain and the sun was always out. This would have been in the mid 60's up until around the late 70's.
The weather really is changing!
SeasideMan
Pro Thanks Missy, that fits with my observation too...
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Summer weather was pretty dire in the 60's according to my memory. Prior to 1976, the best summer was 1959 (at lest, where I lived). And my mother was always complaining that the weather was so much better and more predictable, with less downpours to soak her line of washing when she was a girl!
Looking forward to the photos!