Holy cow!

Banbury just got pounded. Torrential rain, some hail and thunder and lightning. Half an hour of some of the most exciting weather I've seen here in a couple of decades

2016 summer bit of washout so far, reminds me of the dreadful summers of 2007 and 2012

When was the last decent one? 2013?

I'm sure we used to get hotter drier summers in the 1990s

I remember the summer of 1995, Here in N.I Each day was blue skies sunny and highs in the 20's from June right through until August.

Here's an old weather report https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EefsCwQ_gTI

South Midlands/Northern Home Counties have copped for most of the thunderstorms in this recent spell.

That isn't pure nostalgia. We actually did.

Yes I definitely remember them 95 and 99 were the outstanding ones from what I recall.

Apparently the 80s weren't as good as we remember them though, the hot years were 1983 and 1989, proving my theory that odd numbered years are always hotter/better than evens (76 being the exception)

More flash floods today -

http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/ne...-city-11478840

Not sure where you are but bar a few days it's been a fairly decent end to spring and the start of summer in London, certainly nowhere near 2007. Both 2013 and 2014 were good summer's and last year wasn't too bad.

2nd dry day in a row down here, far south of Hants, well all but 1 mm a couple of days ago, that is. 11mm of rain in the first half of June ain't at all bad in my book, we've been having sunny intervals as well. Lucky here... so far!

I'm on a large 77mm of rainfall for June so far at the halfway stage, almost all of that has fallen in the past 8 days.

My area is historically one of the driest areas of England and the whole UK too.

not strictly true though is it..

last week up to friday was sunny dry and very warm/hot.. we have had 7 days now out of 16 that have been very wet (regional variations though saw more rain in some places).

this week has been like 07, 08, 12, BUT the synoptic charts that gave us those washout summers simply are not here now. we have no strong northern block or southerly tracking jet stream... so i hope this week has been a blip, caused by a large deep stagnant low thats just sat on top of us.

so its unlikely to last through the summer, and in fact theres a lot of high pressure in the outlook so id suggest we are more likely to get nice weather then bad.

yes summers 89 - 97 were predominantly warm, sunny and dry... 95 was the greatest with 11 consecutive days in august of widespread 25c +

I spoke too soon, we had 18mm on Thursday and my monthly total to date has nearly tripled!

Should have kept my big mouth shut!

Yet another direct hit on me!

Incredibly I can report that I've had yet another thunderstorm give a direct hit on my location during Thursday late afternoon, plenty of forked and sheet lightning nearby again, torrential rainfall which dumped 10mm in 10 minutes and ended up with a daily total of another 15mm, now taking my June 2016 rainfall total to 92mm! It ended up far warmer than anticipated in the brightness before the storm hit, peaking at 22c.

Sounded like you needed that 18mm d'@ve! I've now got plenty of lying water to sweep down the drain again.

maybe some heat next week... weds - sat sees some high upper air temps flirting with southern england.. could get some very high temps in the southeast.

Very loud thunder over Suffolk right now. Its black as night outside, but no rain as yet.

Makes a nice change. I love a good thunderstorm and we seem to get so few of them. I seem to recall a documentary once implying that we're part of the UK's 'tornado alley' and Tuesday afternoon I could believe it.

I'm sure that I'll get cried down for this, but here goes...

This summer so far is really reminding me of 1990. I moved house on the 8th June that year (the opening day of Italia '90 if there are football fans amongst you) and I remember that day being sunny and warm, I didn't take a jacket to work and then for a couple of weeks after that, the weather being like it has been the last few days, it changed again at the beginning of July and we had a very hot July and August, I can remember walking home from work on a few occasions because I just couldn't face getting on a hot crowded bus. Hopefully this summer will be the same.

We have had a lot of thunderstorms in my corner of the West Midlands over the past week or so, MrKat and I were caught in a bad thunderstorm last Wednesday and I got soaked to the skin last night taking my dog for a walk. It's not got that much cooler though, I'm wearing a long sleeved top today and am quite warm in it, warm enough to consider going to get changed.

true the summers of 90 and 76 both had cooler cloudier spells mid june... but neither had the torrential rains, both summers were extremely dry (the great drought of 76) and 90 was bone dry too.

of course trying to guess the weather for a month or two haed is foolish, and despite being 'like' another, theres no certainty that it will follow suit.

imho we are long overdue for a long hot dry summer.... 2013?.. yeah in the southeast, and it was the 'best' summer since 06, but it wasnt an 06, 03, 95, 91, 90, 83, 76, 75... i cut grass for a living, in 'good' summers i lose work as the grass browns off. its ten years now since i lost work through drought stress, the longest period since i started work back in '73. hence we are overdue... and this year since early may we have been dallying with a possible great heatwave, the synoptics have almost been right but have not quite hit the nail on the head.

so im rather optimistic, looking ahead into the turning point of summer (late june early july - long hot summers have usually shown their hand by about july 10th at the latest) as we are close to getting something hot. theres a lot of high pressure around in the outlook... it would only take a small nudge to produce something spectacular!

on the other hand, this summer might be the 'nearly' summer, when the right synoptics just refuse to fall into place despite them being nearly there.

It was beginning to turn browny yellow at the end of the warm dry June of 2010, Then it became unsettled.

I agree I think we're definitely over, overdue a decent summer.

2013 was good but it wasn't in the same league as 1995 or 2003 (which incidently I remember both having a shocking May and early June). I think it was just so much better than the years and years preceeding it, it was welcome relief.

Seriously, before 2013 I think we had a run of 10 years of bad summers. 2006 was ok but was short lived and August was particularly bad.

I tend to write off the summer if we haven't had anything by the third week of July as 9 times out of 10 August is usually bad.

I guess we still have time this year, but they said so far the outlook is very 'typical'. It's certainly been a lot poorer than last year (which was very 'typical' from what I recall.

What a bonkers week its just been, with seemingly endless fast moving, black sky/rain/sun weather fronts. Wasn't it similar last year? I hate when June's a wash out - summer feels shortened, maybe because it's the longest day next week! Hope we get a good couple of weeks or more sunshine soon, rather than these maddening, one day special offers!

yeah you in the southeast always fare better/drier.

looks like our sighting of a possible settled anticyclonic spell has gone tits up... who would have thunk it?.. grrr

It is a shame.

I just want a few Summer mornings waking up to the Sun streaming through the kitchen window, instead of perpetual dull grey skies first thing.

That said, it is quite warm, and is likely to get warmer still over the next few days. The accompanying thunderstorms in this area? - I'll believe it when I see it. They will be either side, or just North/South, or break up into two as they approach this town, leaving a clear patch overhead.

......... anomaly charts dont offer any hope of a proper anticyclonic evolving in the next 2 weeks...

long hot summers seem to have always started by the end of the first week in july..

Before the latest round of storms hit the south east of England (maybe Blueblade will get lucky this time) I should report that last Friday night between 8.30pm and 9pm we had an almighty torrential downpour which dumped another massive amount of rain in a short time, this time 20mm in half an hour. That sent my monthly rainfall through the 100mm mark up to 112mm. Then on Monday there was another 11mm so with only two thirds of the month gone I am on 123mm of rain for June.

So June 2016 has been damned wet! But I only have to go back to June 2012 when that month in my area had 143mm. Some may remember that day after day the Olympic torch was being run around the country in sopping wet and dull conditions. I also recorded my wettest ever month of June in 1987 with 147mm of rain when I first began collecting data as a teenager. One more heavy cloudburst and it could be beaten this year.

"Blazing June" has actually proved a significantly wet month down the years.