Lockdown summer good but not a record-breaker

Lockdown summer good but not a record-breaker

The summer of 2020 was the equal 14th-warmest on record, with an average temperature of 18°C, according to figures released by Jersey Met.

Rainfall across the three months – June, July and August – was near average and sunshine levels were above normal, but fell well short of the all-time record.

When combining sun, rain and temperature this summer ranks as the 21st ‘best’ since records began in 1925, meaning that this holiday season will be remembered for many things, but it won’t be the weather.

It is believed that one of the reasons this summer seemed so much better than it was is because many of the best days fell at the weekend and during August, when more people were off work and able to get outdoors.

Paul Aked, senior meteorologist at Jersey Met, said: ‘The average temperature this summer was only 0.5°C above the long-term average.

‘It feels like it should have been warmer than that, but I think we just had some very sunny summer days and these came in August and coincided with the school holidays.’

A total of 157mm of rain fell during the three months, slightly more than the long-term average of 143.8mm. And while the Island recorded a fairly impressive sunshine total of 838.3 hours, it was positively gloomy when compared to the famous record-breaking summer of 1976, when a total of 999 hours were notched up.

The summer also saw major extremes in weather, with this June being the fifth-wettest on record, July being the eighth driest and Friday 7 August being the fourth hottest day ever in Jersey with a top temperature of 35.3°C.

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