The British Weather

Ignoring the weather and global warming points for a mo, does anyone want to discuss the suggestions about moving show dates about?

We can not change the weather trends, however we can move the events.
It seems to me that as the summers are getting wetter the springs and autumns are getting better.

Could some shows actually be moved around a bit with this in mind – discuss!

Fully in agreement with you regarding shifting SOME events closer to Autumn

Seems like “Indian-Summers” are more likely thesedays.

I went to last-years Autumn-Air Display at Duxford on the 14th Oct (’07).

The weather was EXCELLENT & shirt-sleeves were in order, that afternoon.

Back in the ’80’s & ’90’s, I (& family) used to FREEZE at the same event.

I do find it frustrating having ALL the major airshows bunched together so closely – Waddington/Duxford/R.I.A.T & Farnborough all within a few weeks of each other this year; regardless of cancellations & weather, etc….

Problem often is though, with regard to the bigger shows, there’s so much to see & get around to doing, that a late-finish (for the ‘enthusiast’ at least) is often inevitable.

Example; by 8.pm I was only just getting back into the car, at Waddington (as I have done in previous years, i.e. 1980’s/1990’s) & there were STILL almighty queues stretching back to the static (a/c) park, trying to leave the base.

As 21st June is B.S.T’s “high-point”, it’s understandable that organisers want to capitalise on maximum-use of Daylight hours…… something that starts to “tail-off” rapidly as we go further into Autumn.

I guess late Aug’-Sept’ seems a fair compromise, though to be honest, it’s ONLY really the last TWO summers (this & last) that we’ve all got good reason to gripe about, here in the U.K.

I can STILL remember regularly attending the Stapleford-Tawny shows ( in pre- North-Weald “Fighter-Meet” days) back in the early 1980’s & it was almost guaranteed that the weather would be crap (which was a shame, as I often used the bike, rather than my old Sunbeam-Rapier !) and the attractive Girl-friend who became my wife, moaning like hell at “these bloody-Airshows !”
Year in, year out, crap-weather.
Even at some of the (much lamented) Mildenhall shows, until (by 1986) they ALL seemed to go from rainy, to scorching-hot (both weather-wise & in a/c content/participation !). I’m generalising, but you get the picture ?

Currently-speaking…. September airshows; bring ’em on !!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t think UK weather is too bad… considering London is about the same Lat as Winnipeg where it’s known to get a bit nippy..

Ahoy there DC103! Planning any work ?:D

NG

Neil, shouldn’t you be decorating or something! 😉 😀

Sorry Chris, it’s not a view it’s fact. I was a forecaster for some 40 years, and trends were being identified all the time. Between 1963 and 1966 I was a very junior member of the Met Office’s long range forecast team (which produced the monthly forecasts). The team used an analogue techinque – the mean values of temperature, pressure etc, for the past month were compared with those for the same month over the previous 100 years. The aim was to identify 4-5 similar years, then base the forecast on the weather of the following months from this sample.

Seems crude I appreciate, but the Met Office was forced into issuing what had been experimental forecasts as a matter of political expediency. The success rate was very low, but it demonstrates trends cannot be relied on. I’ve lost count of the papers I’ve read on the subject. One of my bosses at the time produced a number of learned papers that apparently showed the winter of 1962/63 was part of a trend towards a mini ice age, with long cold winters and heavy snowfall – my sledge is still in the loft waiting to be used.

I appreciate autumn, and winters, have been generally milder than the long term averages, but I’m afraid the only 100% guarantee of trends is that they will reverse.

I hear what you say about the apparent change to better autumns (winters are generally warmer as well), but my point is that these swings never persist and always reverse at some time.

Brian

It’s always been the same in the UK. You can get rain, snow, fog, wind and sunshine. And that’s just in the morning!

Bri 😀

Basically we live on a small island with a maritime climate,just because last summer was a washout and this summer has not been too good it is not necessarily a trend.As Lyffe said, fairford was just plain unlucky,I work outside most of the time and as an ex glider pilot always look at the sky…the week before last it was a hard decision to decide what to wear…the difference between sunny and hot or really heavy rain was about 2 miles with the bad weather ‘streeting’ just to the south all the time.
We have had bad summers before,we have also had very bad springs as well,you will be sadly let down if you expect a logical/dependable weather pattern in this country.

cheers baz

Ahoy there DC103! Planning any work ?:D

NG

Maybe we can look forward to a resurgence of sea plane and flying boat displays in the UK? 😀 They like the wet weather….

…. I’ll get my coat.

I came to England last Friday and I was shocked about how cold it was. When I left Norway it was at least semi-sunny. The wind you chaps had was scary cold. I didn’t expect such a weather type for England during summer.

I would say hold RIAT on exactly the same date and venue next years, and on the simple basis of chance, it will most likey be OK.

To GUARANTEE wall-to-wall sushine, everyone who was going to go must instead be diverted to some unmissable family occassion, eg weddding, christening (yawn) -works every time for me!

You move the dates – you just have to endure other weather issues. I have had more sunny and dry airshows than wet and windy…

The only way to guarantee good weather on an air show day in the UK is to move the airshow to somewhere like California!!!

Good luck with that.. it was 112deg here & RAINING on Saturday…
At one point I was out on the patio where my head was feeling raindrops, but they were evaporating before they hit the ground so the patio wasn’t actually getting wet which was somewhat bizarre.. At the same time just a few miles away they were dealing with flashfloods…

With respect Chris,

Rainfall patterns are always shifting, ’twas ever thus, but to assume they are going to continue following a trend is living in cloud cuckoo land. What happened at Fairford was unfortunate, but nothing unusual. Summer has always been a season in which there is localised heavy, thundery rainfall events. If you go back through weather records you will find many similar instances – the Lynmouth floods of 1952 are a case in point.

Last Sunday I was at a show in Wootton Bassett, about 7 km from Lyneham; during the afternoon there was a very heavy shower, yet Lyneham remained dry. On the afternoon that Fairford was washed out, we had hardly any rain at all in Devizes, about 35 km to the south.

Fairford was plumb unlucky, I’m sorry people were disappointed and were out of pocket, but it happens – it’s the nature of British weather. Just because it’s happened this year does not mean that it will happpen next.

Brian

Ignoring the weather and global warming points for a mo, does anyone want to discuss the suggestions about moving show dates about?

pagen01,
Some doom-mongers claim that the warming will result in the UK getting colder – all the fresh water from the ice caps forcing the Atlantic conveyor to ‘switch off’ by being forced south. We could be travelling to Duxford by sled dogs!

Whatever causes our wonderful ‘four-seasons-in-one-day’ climate I know that today was akin to being in abroad. Sunshine with a nice breeze and 25c indicated by the car dash tempermature gidget – t-shirt, shorts and flipflops and an arm full of beer…

….ahhhhhhh, makes me realise that I prefer the hot weather to the cold now my blood is getting thin and the joints are aching!!!

It’s the jetstream wot does it. It meanders around the Northern Hemisphere, a snaking river of high speed wind, sometimes moving North, sometimes South and sometimes in an omega loop. It influences the passage of N Atlantic depressions across our sceptred isle..and that’s what gives us our weather. We are just stuck with it basically. If you don’t like its unpredictability..well you know what you have to do!

Umm I hate to say this, glogal warming causes warmer and wetter weather not sunnier weather!
That is if it is happening.

Ahhhh the pleasures of living in a maritime climate,surely our summer weather has something to do with El Nino (or the opposite…. La Nina ??) which affects the position of the Azores High Pressure area.Dont have time to check it today but at least ‘climate change’ gives ‘New’ Labour easy excuses to tax the A55 off us here in Britain.As Bob said..even before Global Warming became big business our summer weather has always been very changeable,and we may get a real scorcher next year (or we may not 😀 ).

cheers baz

The only way to guarantee good weather on an air show day in the UK is to move the airshow to somewhere like California!!!

In the years that I have been going to Flying Legends (and Classic Fighter before that) the weather has been hit and miss. Thankfully Legends is over two days and you’re bound to get at least one decent day out of it. Which day you choose to go is a bit of a lottery.
I’ve been baked and soaked alternately enough over the years (probably long before global whining was the cause celebre) to know it’s just the wonderful British weather.

The weekend before is invariably glorious and as the week progresses some front or another works it’s way in from the Atlantic.

RIAT just had a bad year – it’s rained just as hard around DX but because the soil composition is different and it isn’t built on a floodplain (as I believe Fairford is) the car parks remained in a solid state.

Look at Glastonbury – some years its fine – others it is a wash out. Another example are the bank holiday weekends – how many times have you witnessed the lines of snails, oops, caravans heading off to their camp grounds only to have the heavens open up on them?

And if global warming is happening then perhaps we’ll get some decent summers here at last!