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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.

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.

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...

Stunning while waiting for my flight to Gatwick

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

Yes, ground slightly damp. Temp down to 1.8°C in the night. Currently 3.3°C .

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.

B87 that figure would get your sunshine stats back on the right track though to not see a wisp of cloud somewhere in this country for a whole month would take a small miracle though I’m surprised it hasn’t happened or that the sunshine monthly record has stood for over a century, crazy, must be one of the oldest records yet to fall? I thought this country was slowly meant to be getting sunnier

I recorded 304 hours of sunshine in May 2020. That's very close to what I have recorded so far this year.

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.

Excellent as that would mean I will only be 0.1C out with my guess. Earlier in the month, it was looking like I could be amiss by as much as 2C!

carinthian now that is some snow, not the piddling amounts we have to put up with. It’s bad enough when wagon wheels and mars bars are affected by shrinkflation but these days it’s even snowfall.

Iceaxecrampon I know Keldas well, the bluebells are a treat. I remember visiting them in mid May 2020, north slopes and they were in bloom, whereas they were barely out same time 2021. Another fine day here, turning into a decent dry spell in the Lake District and we look best placed to see least rain in England in days ahead..As said this is the lakeland dry season, all quite normal to see eastern and south parts plagued by cloud this time of year whilst we bask in sunshine. Chilly frosty nights at present.

WillinGlossop Yes, its an impressive covering for so late but not a great fan of snowfall at this time of year. Just want some warm sunshine now but so much more appealing is a continental climate with its more extreme variety of weather. Hope you lot get some decent warmth and sunshine soon ? C

NCAR updraft helicity for sat, Kansas and Oklahoma stands out with Kansas having a less discrete mode. Oklahoma has 2 prominent discrete storm tracks. As posted by @Eagle Eye the 12z NAM has a very, very potent environment, we'll see if the trend sticks but sat could genuinely be the highest end threat the plains has had for many years. Soundings from Oklahoma Soundings from Kansas

Ben Sainsbury Me too man! Should've gone now. Oh well, hopefully I can get something from May 6-14!

Saturday with a positively tilted trough ejecting across the southern parts of the great plains with a full on dryline and with 65°F+ dewpoint. Very much a potentially classic setup here, but there's still a lot that could go wrong. That notch in Northern Kansas would probably be the safest bet, but you'd typically chase Oklahoma on a plains day given previous events, even one last year when the plains wasn't that active if I remember correctly. Northern Kansas Oklahoma

0z deterministic runs, out to Wed 1 May (day 7) Could we see that warmer easterly right at the beginning of May? Both flavours of ECM plus the UKMO seem to think it's possible... 0z ensemble means, out to Thu 9 May (day 15) The ECM mean wants to support its op on the idea of warmer air coming in briefly from the east right at the beginning of May. Beyond that we have clear signs of anticyclonic activity in our vicinity in early May, but with an equally clear risk that this will remain too far to our west or southwest for us to warm up. Why did it feel so darn cold when I woke up this morning?! Current temperature (colours) and wind (lines) at 850hPa (left) and at the surface (right), screenshotted from https://earth.nullschool.net/ at something like 10am this morning.

Dont get me wrong Saturday still has fail modes, especially regarding morning convection but this 500mb chart could seriously be in a meteorology textbook page for what a significant tornado outbreak trough in the plains looks like. Strong belt of flow rounding the base and ejecting into the area at peak heating, negative tilt, divergence aloft. Recent trends have slightly slowed the trough ejection and further amplified the jetstreak. This is important, a faster ejection=less time between morning convection and our main event. Comparing past significant tornado events with this type of trough ejection the one that sticks out to me as looking the most similar is May 24th 2011, will we reach that ceiling? Im not convinced at the moment but the potential is there. Nam comes into range in about 2 hours interesting to see what it shows. Two other failure modes i can think of are lingering cloud cover and storms firing too early to make use of LLJ, also not 100% with lapse rates but lets see what CAMS do. CSU very potent though Ben Sainsbury I still think late may and early june has very good potential, big cape storms that only require a gust of wind to surge the RFD and drop a photogenic cone. Good luck out there!

I'm seeing a lot of well-experienced forecasters/chasers becoming very concerned about the upcoming prospects from Thursday onwards. Fortunately on night shifts so will be able to follow the entire event. If only I'd decided to go chasing out in the States a month earlier

Im not surprised by the spcs upgrade for thursday although it is very rare for them to upgrade the day 3 risk. A lot of shorter range models have the dryline firing. Any discrete supercell that can sustain itself will be capable of golfball-baseball sized hail, 70+ mph straight line wind gusts and strong-violent tornadoes. I also think the spcs decision to upgrade was partly due to the csu machine learning showing the equivalent of a high risk for the area, never seen that before! 21z RAP very potent, two dryline bulges one in Texas panhandle and another in Northern Kansas. Soundings from Texas panhandle Soundings from Northern Kansas Wonder if we see a 30% upgrade for fri and sat tomorrow morning, looking at models at the min both days certainly meet the threshold.

Ground finally dry enough to roll again this evening but the north wind is very cold.

If we dont see downtrends in the next few days saturday is going to be a problem, a significant trough ejection with strong flow rounding the base, negative tilt and ejection right at peak heating. At the minute everything synoptically speaking looks very favourable for a high end severe weather outbreak. A sub 997mb low is expected to develop with a strong (50-60 knot) low level jet. The existence of subtle confluence bands was also pointed out on twitter. In regimes with less forcing these bands can help give just enough lift for storms to fire off allowing for discrete convection. I do think its important to urge some caution though, differences do still exist in models. Look at the ukmets depiction, much less favourable with trough way behind. Weve had the wheels fall off the train before (especially our last setup) so lets see what the NAM and other short range models show when they get into range tomorrow/Thursday. Overall though, thursday, Friday and Saturday all are looking like good chase days with severe weather with all hazards possible. RRFS for thursday Nam 3km also for thurs NAM for friday SPC now upgraded Thursdays risk to a day 3 enhanced. "Severe thunderstorms are likely from late Thursday afternoon into Thursday night across parts of the central and southern Great Plains. Very large hail, severe wind gusts, and strong tornadoes will all be possible. Guidance continues to suggest strong buoyancy will be in place ahead of a negatively tilted shortwave trough ejecting across the southern High Plains. General forecast expressed in the previous outlook remains valid, but confidence in an area of greater severe-weather potential has become more apparent with the most recent guidance. Late afternoon development is anticipated across the TX Panhandle, with these storms quickly becoming severe and capable of large to very large hail up to 3" in diameter. Low-level moisture may be later to arrive in west-central/southwest KS, delaying convective initiation to a few hours later than farther south. Large to very large hail is anticipated with initial development across west-central/southwest KS as well. In both of these areas, storms are expected to move east-northeastward off the dryline, encountering strengthening low-level southerly flow and environment that is increasingly favorable for tornadoes. Low-level shear will continue to strengthening into the early evening, and the overall environment supports the potential for strong to intense tornadoes if a discrete mode can be maintained." Interestingly, CSU now predicting a very small area equivalent to a high risk for Thurs, i think it will be very conditional due to cap but a significant severe event is possible if storms can fire.