Weather

[William of Walworth]

There's one piece of good logic to that as it goes.

Remember that gap year 2012 came a year later than normal. I say this on the basis that normally there's a gap after every four, but the 2012 gap followed five (2007 to 2011 inclusive).

Without the Olympics last year, there'd have been a gap year in 2011 (when the late June weather was mixed/reasonable) and it would have returned last June, which would have given us hellish conditions.

So by tweaking the gap year to make it coincide with the Olympics, Michael Eavis has along the way tricked the weather gods. He's smart like that.

Edited April 30, 2013 by William of Walworth

[William of Walworth]

No forecasts or data for now folks!

Edited April 23, 2013 by William of Walworth

[William of Walworth]

Edited April 24, 2013 by William of Walworth

[ItsBadForYa]

I'm going with the same logic that with the weather being so atrocious in the fallow year, we've dodged a bullet and it's going to be nice.

Complete pie-in-the-sky just now really, but it makes total sense to an optimist like me.

Edited April 24, 2013 by ItsBadForYa

[William of Walworth]

Fairly encouraging early/long range data from CFS. Remember that this will be subject to change though :

Check Gavin's post from yesterday from the netweather forum (Summer 2013 thread)

On those maps, red means good/High Pressure dominated, blue means the oopposite (Low, bad and wrong), white inbetween.

I read that as offering a better May than June, but not a bad June at all. It's basically an overall picture for each month though. So extrapolating what it might mean for the end of June is a gambler's game .... lets hope the generally positive trend can get properly established and continue though!

Then CreweCold commented, late yesterday :

A mean mid latitude high has been a regular occurrence on those CFS maps since around February. It's one of the reasons I'm so bullish of a drier and warmer than average summer season. The last GLOSEA4 model run which I looked at also pointed to the same mid latitude feature.

Those CFS charts have been an extremely useful tool over the past 12-18 months; they picked out last summer's deluge and the extremely cold March we experienced this year.

Edited April 30, 2013 by William of Walworth

[Midnight Man]

I like this thread almost as much as the festival

The Met Office produced this infographic summary of last year's weather which shows, as has been said, it was a lucky escape that the festival wasn't on, though tickets would probably have been easier to come by if it had been..

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/in-depth/uk-weather-2012

[sinhala]

Every dry day in Pilton between now and 24/25th June is a bonus.

[Ed209]

The Long rangers are looking very positive.

WoW, do you have access to the same forecasts from last year. Did they correctly predict an absolute washout for June?

[JoeyT]

Hopefully the return of WoW will lure the illusive Jackone out of his hibernation

First signs look positive weather wise so fingers crossed this remains throughout the run up.

Nothing quite matches the highs and lows (pardon the pun) of the weather thread as we get closer to the festival!

[LondonTom]

I see the "science" weather thread is coming along to NFR NFC sort of thinking

[Zoo Music Girl]

Yes I noticed that. Looks like our plan is working...

[Stu H]

Anything other than torrential rain (cheers 2011), and i'll be happy!

[Kyelo]

It would be interesting to see the weather records for the festival area over the last 10 years.

[howlin_pete]

It may not mean much at this stage, but if those forcasts were predicting a really wet June I would have a sinking feeling in my heart, so pleased they are predicting the opposite.

And was 2011 really that bad? I remember it not being that bad overall, by Saturday night I thought the place had mostly dried up, and even before it didn't rain much during the day. To be fair I was in such a haze of enjoyment Friday night during Primal Scrrem that I barely noticed the downpour that night, even stayed up till about 2-3am sitting in our ponchos afterwards

[dan05delaney]

2011 Thursday was hit and miss... firday was ok until about 9 and then hammered it down for hours

[Thearg]

Just had a look back at the last 10 festivals to see the weather history and its been

Rain-5

Good- 5

So its 50/50 really

How annoying.

[Kyelo]

Just had a look back at the last 10 festivals to see the weather history and its been

Rain-5

Good- 5

So its 50/50 really

How annoying.

[Thearg]

Could they be broken down anymore? As in 2011 was rain but not too bad, 2010 was sunny but like a desert?

[William of Walworth]

Here's my /topic/174206-weather/?p=3988592">weather history of very many Glastonburies past

(posted 18 April, back on page 5 of this thread).

I will soon be trying to persuade JACKONE back into circulation, but best for him to hold his monitoring until no earlier than mid May really -- it's not until then that forecasts start to become somewhat more reliable and not just long range hopecasts/signals.

Ahead of that though, I will try and keep a general eye myself on what's coming up for summer on Netweather and other sites

So keep this thread going and continue to watch this space weather watchers!

If you're feeling more religious/superstitious/small animal sacrificing though, go to the other thread!

[Kyelo]

My Glastonbury Festival Weather History from the beginning of time until now :

1984 : Warm and sunny, predominantly. Fairly vague memories mind!

1985 : Failed to go. On my finals at uni. Mates went though, and their truck got bogged down axle deep in the mud. First proper large scale true Glasto mudbath. Full on Mudbath I, in fact.

Horror stories put me off going back until ......

1994! Yes I know. Idiot that I was ...

But yes, I was an idiot, because of the years 1986-1987, 1989-1990 and 1992-1993 [1988 and 1991 were fallow], the predominant theme was HOT AND SUNNY with only temporary 2011 like exceptions for bits of them.

1989 (mega heatwave), 1992, 1993 were especially rain and mud free and sun dominated I understand.

So back I go again :

1994 : Warm and sunny, mostly.

1995 : Hot and sunny, with the partly cloudy exception of Sunday morning.

[1996 : Fallow]

1997 : Full on Mudbath II

1998 : Full on Mudbath III

1999 : Dry. DRY and then some more DRY. Mostly cloudy, not much sun, not all that warm, a couple of hours of light but persistant rain on Sunday morning. But you could SIT DOWN!

2000 : Crazy party year, many zillions of fencejumpers and mad fuckers and dodgy sorts and all night parties. Me : Continuously wrecked, chaining the weed and necking the beer n cider all day every day. Can't remember much other than it DIDN'T RAIN (except very early on for a shortish while), plenty of sun, pleasantly warm ...

[2001 : Glasto sorts itself out fallow year. Superfence built ahead of 2002]

2002 : No rain lots of sun. Warm.

2003 : No rain, lots of sun. Hotter.

2004 : Mixed. Very windy and plenty of showers on arrival on Wednesday, similar Thursday, weirdly warm and sunny on Friday, then quite a lot of on/off showers, some heavy, on Saturday and Sunday, but no really bad mudbath. Friday apart, no significant sun/warmth, but mud levels were polite to us.

2005. Wednesday to Thursday night : Very hot and sunny. Thursday night : Several hour serious downpour with floods. Friday and Saturday : Site recovering, but no more rain, getting warmer/sunnier again.. Sunday : Properly hot and sunny again and mud mostly gone.

[2006 : Fallow year]

2007 : Full on Mudbath IV to the max. Vile in every respect. My worst Glastonbury ever. Strangely enough, my true online Glastonbury weather obsessions began after this! For some unaccountable reason ...

2008 : Pleasantly dry and mostly sunny, not stupidly hot though.

2009 : A bit of rain and slight mud early on, but similar to 2008 overall.

2010 : Wall to wall sunshine and increasingly hot as the fest went on.

2011 : You all remember. Mixture of sun and mud depending which day you mean ... but not excessively muddy even on Friday night/Saturday morning.

Lovely and sunny and getting hot again on Sunday.

Sure some of you will disagree with some details of the above, but main point is that my veteran Glasto recollections say ...

There've been many more mud free (and limited mud) Glastonburies than full on mudbaths!

Hope this is encouraging.

Hope so, because this year will be my 17th (and fifth as a worker).

[Midnight Man]

So using a 5 point system, 1 being a mudbath and 5 being no rain, I'd rate them as...

'84 4

'85 1

'86 -'93 will say 3 since you never went 7

'94 3

'95 4

'97 1

'98 1

'99 3

'00 4

'02 5

'03 5

'04 3

'05 2

'07 1

'08 4

'09 3

'10 5

'11 3

...which is an average of 3.05 over the years. The last 5 festivals have an average of 3.2 so I predict some light showers but overall pleasantly warm and sunny

...if only things worked like that haha

[William of Walworth]

Early hopes of another possibly positive summer signal from Netweather -- several summers in recent years have been extensively damaged by the dreaded 'Southerly Tracking Jet' [stream] -- ie a much more Atlantic, Low Pressure system-driven pattern.

However current signals suggest the Jet shows distinct signs of tracking more Northerly (it's already starting to happen in fact).

The PIT is an experienced weather watcher and he said early today :

Well at the moment things are looking better. The jet stream back in the right place, last year it switched south at the end of March and stayed there. Nothing to say it won't switch back but we're due a drier summer and a little warmth.

Edited May 1, 2013 by William of Walworth

[William of Walworth]

Kyelo -- I suspect 3-ish might be a misleading average for the period 1986 to 1993. Direct anecdotal evidence (in the Glastonbury Festival Tales book and from friends of mine) say 1989, 1992, 1993 were all dry scorchers, 1986 1987 and 1990 all with limited rain, much more sun.

So I'd reckon an average of 4 for that period.

[abdoujaparov]

Kyelo -- I suspect 3-ish might be a misleading average for the period 1986 to 1993. Direct anecdotal evidence (in the Glastonbury Festival Tales book and from friends of mine) say 1989, 1992, 1993 were all dry scorchers, 1986 1987 and 1990 all with limited rain, much more sun.

So I'd reckon an average of 4 for that period.

[Kyelo]

It is pointless

My concern is I have been to 4 Glastonburys, none have been bad. Surely I am due one...or did we miss it in the fallow year? What was the weather like last year?