Leaderboard

sunny_vale My optimism for the year was extinguished once we got another late season SSW. Those things are the deathknell for Spring & guarantee endless gloom. To think people were saying, "oh it won't be that bad this time!" or "we could be on the good side of the SSW!" well guys, it was even worse than last years SSW lol. Hope this isn't gonna be an every year thing now otherwise Spring is a thing of the past! I'm normally fairly optimistic & I was back in January but yeah, this is the worst period of weather I've ever lived through, can't lie!

In other news; I have three hedgehogs in my garden right now. One large, two small.. ish.

Hawesy very similar here though a bit more cloud this evening. Down by the river this afternoon.

A decent day, especially by the poor standards of this month. Sunny spells and pleasant enough in the sun. Minimum was 0c, max 12c.

If only it was ..... On this occasion its a warm easterly ..

Mapantz aww hope you leave some treats for them

TwisterGirl81 'though to not see a wisp of cloud somewhere in this country for a whole DAY would take a small miracle' I've just corrected your typo

Arctic day up temps mostly around 5-7C but very cold northerly biting. In the few sunny intervals felt nice enough out of the wind. Managed first cut of grass albeit in thick coat and hat. Quite happen with hitter. Old in the winter but this constant cold is getting tad wearing. Was going to say at least it’s dry but I hear rain now on the roof window…

Cloudy morning, mainly sunny afternoon which combined with light winds felt very nice even though max today was 10.5c. Showers of rain this evening and 5c, Met sticking to their guns all day that these showers will turn sleety around dawn. If it wasn't the fact that its useable light outside until 21:30 now, you'd think it was still mid March...

Mike Poole thanks Mike I'm afraid I'll breach every NW filter imaginable if I type what I really think of the last 6 months of "weather " locally. As always, in unsettled phases the NW cops for the majority of Atlantic systems but this period has been beyond the pale. Like many others I'm desperate for some warmth and sunshine but I'm struggling to see anything resembling this on the 00z NWP . Late season SSW is disastrous for Spring so I always get a feeling of dread when we see SSW's in late Winter. One year we'll see a major SSW in November and get the benefit HL blocking when most of us want to see it,ala Dec/Jan NOT April/May..

Another clear blue start to 100% overcast by 10am. Worst climate ever!

Dare i watch the GFS 06Z "But...but...but the SSW will be different this time guys!" There's no other way around it- SSW = Sudden Spring Wrecker. We don't get a Spring if we get an SSW. The earliest we can expect ANY kind of settled sunny weather would be late May now but it's still a roll of the dice depending on all this crap northern blocking nonsense so we may just get the dullest year ever, time will tell!

55.0 hrs of sunshine here in the first 24 days of April, 56% of average. It's still possible it could be the dullest April on record ( since 2000) as April 2000 recorded 75.5 hrs and currently holds the record.

A bit of rain recently 0.4 mm from another little feature that WRF picked up well.

2.9c raining ️ so much for dry until Sunday oh well… how are we still in this rut? picked up a bug in Londonford mixed with hay Fever lovely jubbly At least managed a good walk yesterday, lots of gardening and odd jobs sorted.. including stopping crows nesting in loft through broken vent cover… by crawling in loft space and blocking vent to 5cm

Heard the rain on the dormer roof when I got up this morning and although it looks to have passed through now, it’s left everything damp so nowhere near as good a start to yesterday and Tuesday. doesn’t look like a bad day coming up though, maybe a few showers but compared to the conditions we’ve endured for much of this spring, passable. just need the warmer air to push up ahead of Saturdays system and for that to remain to our south, then we may manage to get a half decent few days.

They really should release the actual figures. The raw numbers that are displayed on their own website plus others like meteociel and weather online are wrong and misleading. Still don’t understand why they don’t, considering they show the actual ranges on the anomaly maps.

raz.org.rain Not in summer though. Most deserts will still be 25-30c overnight. They can often get frost in winter. Las Vegas has a record low of -13c, which is the same as Heathrow. Albuquerque has colder average minimums that London from October until early April, (including an average January low of -3.1c which is colder than any part of the UK) and a record low of -27c. On the other hand, some desert climates are always warm, eg Djibouti has an average low of 21c in January and 31c in July.

18z NAM pretty much the same as the 12z just an absolutely classic look for a significant tornado outbreak across Kansas and Oklahoma. Soundings from Oklahoma Soundings from Kansas Only one major fail mode is really possible with this kind of setup, that being morning convection. Lets see what our cams show over the next 3 days. Here's the area forecast discussion from the national weather services local office in Wichita, Kansas "Saturday has the potential to bring significant severe weather to the area. Of course there is plenty of time for the forecast to change and there does remain some degree of uncertainty particularly in storm mode. A sfc low in the vicinity of SW KS is progged to deepen and move east/northeast potentially around central/south central KS by peak heating. Moderate to strong instability (2500-4000 J/kg) will combine with strong flow (60kts+ bulks shear), nicely curved hodographs/strong LL SRH, and strong 3CAPE (200j/kg). Any storm that can remain discrete or even semi-discrete in this type of environment will pose significant hazards from strong to potentially violent tornadoes, large to very large (2-3+ inch) hail, and damaging wind gusts." Wonder if a day 3 moderate will be issued, maybe not cause of morning convection but still a possibility.

We had a hail shower about 8.15 as i was driving to work, short and sharp, snow/sleet showers up at cropton forest first thing according to reports, it really needs to warm up, log burner lit again tonight with it being 2°c outside currently.

mike57 Yes, that's what I heard. We had a hail storm on the moors at 9am and it then stayed dry but bitterly cold until 3pm when it unexpectedly rained really hard. The sun came out later and it has actually been a nice evening, with the cold wind dropping right off on the NY coast. Alas, it seems we may be getting showers from a feature from the North Sea early tomorrow which may stick around until late morning. I do not normally say it, but I am actually glad that I shall be heading back to Cheshire later tomorrow.

Imagine being someone who is overjoyed by grey & wet! Would it be something like this? Dean Gray, the drizzle lover- "This has been the BEST 14 months I have ever lived through on this planet!!!! This stunning spell that started in March 2023 with those utterly stunning grey slate skies & that tantalising rain hammering against my skin for days on end has left me in somewhat of a euphoric daze. We had a disgusting blip late May & June 2023 with that absolutely vile sunshine & worryingly dry conditions that could have brought forward extinction of the human race but I decided to take matters into my own hands. I drew a pentagram, got some candles, 100 dead Spring rabbits & a photo of the sun with a knife stomped through it on a dead tree trunk. I performed this sacrifice to Beelzebub & in return I begged him for the UK weather to be like March 2023 forever!!!" "My wish was granted. One of the greatest months in UK Summer history occurred with the utterly perfect July 2023 & August, despite a few annoying blips of filthy sun mid month, kept a mainly dull theme. The 1st half of September was absolutely unacceptable though & I thundered back over to Beelzebub in a hurricane of rage & demanded a return to the weather I WANT. ITS ALL ABOUT ME I screamed in his face. He told me I need to up my sacrifice & so Immediately I unclenched my fists & rushed off to gather the items for my next sacrifice. Upon digging up my expired grandparents & placing them onto the tree trunk surrounded once again by the pentagram & candles, topped with the sun photo, this time with FIVE knives through it, I anticipated my desire to come true." "The weather changed almost immediately after mid month & then I spat out my caramel latte when a few days of 25c & sun appeared in early October....REALLY!!!!!! I charged back over to Beelzebub but he stopped me in panic & exclaimed that the man over there was upset at the poor weather & also started a sacrifice to him & of course I ahem...ended his journey on earth there & then. Ever since, I've had it all my way hahahahaha. Grey, wet, grey, wet, grey, wet, it's all because of me! 2023 was meant to be the start of a Mediterranean climate in the UK but I alone managed to change it to a slightly warmer version of the Faroe Islands!!!" "Nowadays I just dance in the streets in my red lingerie in a blur of complete euphoric bliss just knowing, this is our climate forever now! If anyone even dares go to Beelzebub with a sacrifice to change things, there will be dire, DIRE consequences. You have been warned. I love my life!" Yes I was bored & yes I am weird

Stunning while waiting for my flight to Gatwick

2 / 3 hours of sun this morning and now in comes the cloud, like clockwork. No doubt it'll all clear again this evening after dinner-tine lol. We genuinely need the starts to align in this country to get an actually sunny, or even mostly sunny day. Utterly infuriating.

Some angry but unthreatening skies yesterday.

Walked out with Sophie and she was excited. Look mummy pure blue sky. That's how rare it is here ... Even my child notices!

Sunnyish start to the day. XC Weather forecasting that it will stay like this all day, whilst the Met Office says moderate rain from lunchtime onward. Jeez, how can they be so far apart in forecasting something that will happen in 3 hours?!

Looking at the Sat image and the direction of cloud travel, there are a few breaks. If there's one saving grace, the forecast has overdone cloud amounts for the last few days here and it's broken more than expected.

....And there is it the classical HP over Greenland that spreads northwards up to the arctic, another completely useless spring month coming?

Andy Bown Yep, here it is on my way back, looking your way.

What I’m finding more astonishing than how poor and cold our weather is, is that there’s not a single day on the 00Z where temperatures anywhere in the UK at any given time are above 18C… and that goes out till the 10th of May, 3 weeks from the start of meteorological summer.

*Stormforce~beka* Agreed. Woke up to a lovely morning too, but looking at the satellite, it won't last then that's it for the next few days. Pathetic really.

B87 Don't forget May and the Autumn, the latter was surprisingly sunny for the SE: I suppose it's not that surprising, only March, July and December were seriously dull last year, and December barely even matters. April was a tad dull, the rest were either average overall or sunny. This year February, March and now April have all been dull, April especially so although it doesn't feel like it's been as dull or a duller month than March was, but the stats don't lie. Annual sunshine is a bit of a screwy stat, you could have January-May and October-December all dull, but if two out of four from June-September were significantly sunnier than average and the other two not below then the year would overall be sunny despite it being very dull per capita. Kind of like life expectancy stats for pre-modern eras I suppose where they don't tell the full story.

James1979 Yes. Pretty sure it was 14.5c on Xmas day in my area in 2023. Struggling to get above 10c for the last few days here lol, and with the wind chill, it's been a "feels like less than 10c" situation. Just madness. Ahh, Britain - one of the only places where all that separates a day in summer from a day in winter is the daylight hours. Indeed, the max/high on the summer solstice in June 2021 was actually cooler in parts of the country than the winter solstice of the December 6 months prior. A feat that very few climates that have "seasons" can make claim to.

The summer of 1913 is one of the very few summers in modern records that was both quite cool while also being dry, and much drier than 1981, 1979 or 1977. However it was also fairly dull. England had about 465 hours of sunshine, 90 hours below the 1981-2010 mean. It came after a horrific summer of 1912, and before that the classic summer of 1911. The pattern behind this summer is due to high pressure very frequently situated just to the west of the British Isles, so conditions would often be quite dry, but also cool and not very sunny as the flow is often from the northwest, north or north east. CET of the 3 months: June: 14.3C July: 14.6C August: 15.2C Combined: 14.7C (84th coldest, around 1.5C higher than the coldest summers) England Wales rainfall: June: 39.9mm July: 32.6mm August: 41.9m Combined: 114.4mm (9th driest summer in the EWP series, driest is 1995 with 67mm. For the central - eastern England region (HadCEP), the summer had 88.6mm which is the 7th driest since records began in 1873. For the Midlands there was 93.3mm, the 6th driest since 1836. Brief summaries by Trevor Harley: June: Wet in NW Scotland but fine, dry, and warm elsewhere It was very dry in Southern England. 88F was recorded (about 31C) at Wantage (Oxon.) on the 17th. July: On the 10th lightning during a severe thunderstorm in London killed a 3-year-old boy. There were 15 hours of heavy rain in the London area on St Swithin's Day (15th): after this, there was rain on only 9 of the 40 following days. In Scotland it was one of the driest Julys of the century. Across the country it was the driest month of the year. August: Very dry overall, if cool and cloudy. There were thunderstorms in Yorkshire on the 30th, and the 31st was very wet. The end of May however was quite warm with most of central and southern England reaching 26-27C for a few days and did have some severe thunderstorms though. "On the 27th thunderstorms with damaging hail swept across the Midlands and East Anglia. 60mm hailstones in Castle Hedington (Essex) hurt people and killed rabbits." Some graphs via RoostWeather of the summer here in Coventry with data going back to 1911. Only a handful of days climbing above 25C, and many nights generally on the cool side. The warmest spells were at the start and end of August. Mean max of 20.1C, mean min of 10.6C. To compare, Today's typical summer mean max is about 21.1C, with the mean min at 11.9C. Only 19 days with rainfall above 1mm, and 55 dry days for this summer in Coventry! @LetItSnow! @Cheshire Freeze @markyo I think you guys would have liked this summer a lot

markyo absolutely, 2°c outside, log burner roaring away at the end of April, superb weather....NOT

TwisterGirl81 And the same for here... 2023 January 113% rainfall 120% sunshine February 9% rainfall 111% sunshine March 238% rainfall 54% sunshine April 156% rainfall 93% sunshine May 84% rainfall 107% sunshine June 120% rainfall 137% sunshine July 134% rainfall 78% sunshine August 100% rainfall 95% sunshine September 120% rainfall 117% sunshine October 179% rainfall 107% sunshine November 118% rainfall 114% sunshine December 134% rainfall 41% sunshine 2024 January 86% rainfall 126% sunshine February 223% rainfall 67% sunshine March 219% rainfall 82% sunshine

To highlight Spring sometimes resulting in better weather in the west compared to the east (often due to the increased likelihood of northern blocking at this time of year, and easterly winds that favour the west more than the east), I checked the average sunshine totals for April versus July. In April, many western areas average a very similar amount of sunshine to the south and east: By mid Summer, the south and east averages significantly more sunshine than the north and west: You can also see this for Spring as a whole compared to Summer as a whole: This is largely down to high pressure being far more frequently centred to the north/NW or west of the UK during Spring than at any other time of year, which will always favours sheltered western and NW'ern areas. Add in a late season SSW that increases the chances of northern blocking even more, and this pattern probably becomes even more accentuated.

Nick L it’s the wind! When the wind stops it’s absolutely fine (if I stand at a certain angle in my back garden behind a wall it almost feels like it could be spring)

Myself and my partner went away for a week during Christmas to an absolutely stunning lodge in the Devon countryside, with log burner, hot tub, lovely garden, fire pit etc etc. It was a split decision between Tenerife and Devon. I wanted to go to Tenerife and partner wanted to go to Devon (we had only been to Tenerife in November last year) so we chose Devon, hoping for some seasonal weather, with frost and some sunshine. However, it rained relentlessly from December 22nd right through to boxing day without a break, absolutely dreadful weather. Non stop driving rain with 2 spells of very strong winds. It dried up briefly boxing day afternoon before another named storm arrived Wednesday 27th with gale force winds and driving rain again right through until 29th December when we were leaving. Whilst it was a nice stay, the weather really did put such a downer on the week, it was truly miserable. Didnt get to use the firepit or look at the stars the entire time and due to the wind the hot tub was just generally unpleasant. The owners of the air BnB felt sorry for having such rotten luck and have us a discount when we book again. So we have booked from Friday may 3rd until Monday 6th May, at the time expecting a vast improvement on the absolute garbage over Christmas but looking at the charts during next weekend, it's once again truly looking absolutely miserable. More wet, windy and cold weather. Its truly depressing and I actually launched my phone across the room this morning after that shocking crap the 6z pumped out. I'm just so fed up and angry, spending money to go away with such terrible weather. Just praying that things change for next weekend, even if it was just dry and not particularly warm. Just cannot deal with another weekend away in such a beautiful part of the country, unable to use the facilities of our hideaway cabin. Was really hoping for a nice break away, its been so stressful lately but another few weeks of this I genuinely don't know how im going to get through it. Its so depressing and sucking the life and soul out of any ounce of enthusiasm I have for life anymore. I will never book a break away in the UK again that's for sure.

richie3846 here you go, Richie

Azazel Bloody hell I would be absolutely melting in that attire in this weather. It's chilly but no more than a light jumper required for me.

Derbyshire_snow Local FB groups are reporting sleet and wet snow but no snow on the ground.

A bit less rain but the air temperature is absolutely dire and we have cloudy nothingness

mike57 Would not be at all surprising there has been snow over the NYM this morning It is absolutely baltic here in Sheffield it feels more like December here then April it is absolutely vile.

A Face like Thunder Yes today has started with showers, which even had a few wintery bits in earlier according to Mrs Mike57. 5C, and a strong northerly wind this morning. I dont mind cold but this wind and wet just seems never ending this winter. Stove is lit and will be burning most of the day again.

reef it's all so confusing. I did a comparison between raw figures and met office climate summary maps. They definitely tweak the numbers upwards for the maps.

Got a nice thundery summer skies here Some sunshine but darkness within the distance