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It's quite common in maritime climates such as the UK, where the air is often not dry enough higher up in the atmosphere to prevent cloud development from solar heating, hence why the cloud bubbles up through the morning from a clear start. The joys of being surrounded by the ocean! The surface high pressure caps the clouds from becoming tall cumulonimbus clouds, so you tend to see the sky full of fluffy cumulus clouds that don't usually produce rain. Just annoying infill that can spoil a good day. A good dry continental feed in the summer can eliminate much of this though. We've also had a little bit of instability (vorticity) in the upper atmosphere in recent days, which has meant there has been enough energy and instability to develop some scattered showers - despite high pressure at the surface. Also there have been a few showers along the south coast where sea breezes have developed and been forced against the main northerly flow. Where these collide the air is forced to rise, which can produce showers. Mostly light or not reaching the ground as the air below the clouds is very dry and low humidity. Lots going on as usual! Hope this helps answer some of your questions.

Wow some of you Summer chasing guys need to find a little of what us cold lovers find in Winter...PATIENCE!! Its only mid April for crying out loud! Glorious conditions here last few days...clear skies and feeling warm in the sun..cool and crisp at night and great to sleep in! I'm sure your heat will manifest itself in the coming weeks at some stage...it always does! In the mid term still some lovely looking charts that us coldies would be drooling over come December! Have patience Summer camp,you will get your rewards at some point,but don't forget it's still to early,and a positive start doesn't always equate to a positive ending! In the meantime cold crew enjoy the chilly nights and the hope of a real taste of Winter later this year! That's me jumping the gun a little Keep it safe and have fun!!

Even some snaw Ed..now we’re talking! ️ come back coldies!!!... titttttter ye not

Well, wouldn't this be just typical!

Looking at the ECM 0z operational we may actually feel warmth at some point next week, well, warm uppers (850’s) at least as we develop a SE’ly continental air flow?...looking at the 0z runs generally..it’s a predominantly settled / anticyclonic outlook but with some occasional very short-lived unsettled ? interludes..as the Gfs 0z op shows. ️

Fair play to you guys above - only in Scotland with temperatures currently of 12/13C. (14/15C expected through the afternoon for some) Just went for a run in a light (running) jacket and I was still quite chilly - did see a few folk sunbathing on the beach. It has been cold for months of course so all the best to them - well deserved! Enjoying my last few days of working from home! Back in a stuffy office from Monday. Nice to see the weather will be rubbish - perfect timing. I like my mid/late Spring temperatures in the mid to high teens (even higher would be better) so was quite excited when viewing the ECM earlier. 24/04: 25/04: Fingers crossed for the above and then a warm/hot sunny May would be great as well! All the best to you all!

YES I'LL TELL matt Wolves!!

Just a reminder, if one were needed?..that winter could bite back in late April, on the cusp of May according to the GEFS 12z perturbation 4...and it it certainly did in late April 1981 when parts of the u k had over a foot deep of level snow with deep drifts...just saying!..we ain’t out of the woods yet! ️

This morning's GEFS temperature ensembles are still a bit naff:

Hi gang ,thought I'd pop in for a chat ,charts still looking cool ,especially early mornings .It was great to sit in the garden today in lovely sunshine ,not one contrail in sight, looking at todays charts theres not much rain to be had ,but still a possibility nxt week for isolated hvy showers .Iv cut down on my Sausage Baps ,trying to lose weight ,but hey gang todays baps are extra special ,wild boar sausage, with branston on one daddies on the other ,cheers STELLA'S all round .

Nice to see you have your positive head on again mate..perhaps better suited to the moans thread though! It's far to early to even be thinking about how poor things might become! This is becoming deja vu....You heat lovers are throwing in the towel before the season as even began...a bit like some of the coldies do in December!! Things are moving in the right direction if you ask me...and a successful Vaccine program trumps everything!! Plenty to look forward to if you ask me.

I hope my fellow coldies won’t mind me posting these charts from the GEFS 12z which show a warm up towards the end of April...just to show how unbiased I am...don’t laugh! ...ps..welcome back Matt

Today it's officially 'taps aff' weather whilst working in the garden (well down to a T-shirt anyway).

Is the tail-end of the 06Z signalling the long-hoped-for demise of the cold air, or what? Or nothing? I do prefer green snot to blue snot!

Yes nice to see a bit of warmth back on the table from the ecm0z Jon. Not so much the gfs, however with the increasing strength of the sun and the continent hopefully warming up especially to the south it is only a matter of time for warmer temps to start showing(barring any further unwanted incursions from the north!) A bit of rain is also welcome for the dry areas in the south and east. Patience needed i think.....

ECM 12z - life as an Atlantic low pressure system in the hard times of meridional flow..... Day 3 : low, eastern seaboard, 1000mb, - hey yeah, I’ve made it to the coast! Day 5 - this is easy man, past Newfoundland, 992mb, I’ll catch the jet for sure! Day 7 - this is the life, mid-Atlantic and deepening, 976mb! Day 8 - you know what, I fancy hangin’ out for a bit just off Greenland, 984mb Day 9 - nowhere to go so just filling in time, 1000mb Day 10 - Oh dear....hey, I’ll fall in with this new low, I’ve made it to the coast!

Well the ECM brings in quite cold air from the east , for April anyway

I went looking to see if the cold end to the Gfs 12z operational had any support from the ensembles purely out of curiosity...and I found this one!..to be fair it’s in the minority, there are some relatively much warmer members in that timeframe just before May...but the coldie in me...you know, well I’m sure the coldies know what I mean! ....but I must add that I’m also looking for plumes!.... ⛈ yes I’m conflicted!!...

Hard frost overnight with a low of-3.9c, the recent run of frosts have not done any favours in the garden with lots of blackened new growth. Clear blue skies and currently 10.1c. The big change today is the unwelcome arrival from mid-morning of a stiff and gusty SE wind. This making things feel a lot cooler than yesterday, even though temperature is similar. Come to conclusion we have posh birds round here, changed over to peanuts this week for the feeders as couldn't get any sunflower seeds. Birds arrive, see what's on offer and then immediately fly off! Only takers have been the wood pigeons when you put some nuts on the ground, but they eat anything anyway!

Stunning picture from these parts yesterday. Back to cloud and further snow today. The never ending winter continues. Current temp in village -4c early afternoon max ! C

T-shirts all round then. Cracking day here also with only a couple of big, white cumulous puff-balls to set off the otherwise bright blue sky. Hoorah! Temperature currently maximum for the day so far at 13.1deg.C up from a minimum of 0.1deg.C at 03:23, relative humidity is 57%, wind is 0 to 2mph south-southwesterly, pressure is 1036.0hPa falling slowly, there's been no rain in the last 24 hours and cloud cover is 1/8.

Same here. Lovely day.

A quick look at the Larkhill sounding for 0900 yesterday for one reason. The surface pressure is 1017mb but the lower levels are potentialy unstable and any trigger, say some surface heating, could see cloud tops up to 12,000 fet or there abouts with the odd shower

You keep going on about severe storms but there is no evidence for it in the model output. To get good thunderstorms at this time of the year you need really cold air aloft and a cyclonic flow or a plume event. The current charts show neither.

Hard to have much patience when it’s consistently 5c colder than it should be every day, and even more so when it was cold enough for snow. Thankfully it looks like a recovery of sorts into next week and we won’t have to freeze our asses off in the cold. People aren’t demanding a heatwave, just something a bit more springlike. Mid teens is alright, single figures or 10c in April is just poor.

This is why I try and stay away from posting about the later stages of OP runs - back to Winter on tonight’s ECM! 23/04 24/04 25/04: Will that be correct though? Probably not! Met Office outlook does not agree - mentions likely turning warmer! The plot thickens. Bishopton was the warmest place in the UK today...that shows you just how poor the weather/temperatures are elsewhere at the moment! 15.1C Another air frost for @shuggee tonight.

06Z temperature ensembles are a right barrel of laughs!

Sixty first air frost -1.4C. Sunny and 13.7C now mid afternoon. Lovely and not a breath of wind.

All we can safely say at the moment is that it looks like staying very dry for much of the rest of April. Doesn't appear that any heatwaves are likely with the high orientated in the wrong position, but just a slight change so we can cut off the cooler flow and see some mid to high teens days would be nice. I'm a bit sick of seeing 9-12c days now. Thankfully next week is looking a bit warmer!

ECM mean and spread T240: Almost as nailed as it can be...the only way it could have been nailed better is a 1030 contour on the mean. But we’ve got settled weather from now to at least the next 10 days, very little uncertainty for UK on the spread. I doubt the clusters will show any different. Dry, and a gradual warm up, that is the order of the days to come.

Lovely day, max of 11c but the light winds and strong sun made it feel very pleasant indeed. Bit more in the way of cloud over in Deeside, plenty people out taking advantage of the weather.

oh so close ish...warmer air within....jumping distance to the south.... seems to be a warm air shield around the uk at present..

Yes - Heathrow/Kew Gardens definitely benefits from the urban heat island effect compared to the UK overall. Going back to the Manchester rainfall discussion...15th wettest city in the UK. Always thought it would be higher! Cardiff at number one. Information below was taken from Met Office rainfall figures between 1981 - 2015. I can also see why some folk are complaining about sunshine duration over the last six months or so. October: November: December: January: February: March: Not too bad here..average to above average. Excluding November...that was woeful! This month has been above average also. Hopefully a warm/sunny May for us all with some decent thunderstorms thrown in. Last couple months of May have been fairly quiet. May 2019: May 2020: May 2014: The most recent one I can think of that delivered the goods IMBY. All the best to you all.

These GFS charts (next Wednesday) may shed some light on your question: pressure is high right enough, but it's dragging the air in from the worst possible direction: And then we're left under a coolish ridge -- none too warm and great if you like infill?

None of the seasonals are promoting a scenario where we have a prolonged spell of HP to our E- (late spring to early summer are showing as returning a HP anomaly that stretches from the UK into the Atlantic). This would suggest settled and benign conditions will be the order of the day as we move forward over the next few weeks and into May.

Spent most of the day outside doing jobs in the garden and almost got down to a T-Shirt whilst painting my greenhouse. Didn't quite get there though, maybe if I'd been doing something more strenuous.

Up to 14 c in late afternoon with blue skies and its still 10c so a frost does not look likely tonight.Spring barley coming up in nice rows in the evening sun. Great to feel a soft wind on your face as you open the door. I see Kinloss is still 12.8c so a southerly breeze descending off the Cairngorms may be the reason.

Similar weather here and also same as last few days. Temps just creeping up a notch day and night so missed an air frost with a min of 0.9C and max of 12.4C. Fine for t shirt and shorts when working in the garden and walking in the sun but needed a light jacket when out on the bike. Been a bit if work done in the fields since I last did that particular walk in the snow.

I sense GFS has triumphed once again, ECM now maintaining a cool E/NE feed. April 2021 determined to be markedly below average. I said elsewhere in my part of London, April 1-14th mean max is 6.4C cooler than same period in 2020. Quite remarkable.

Hmm, I wonder if that explains this strange cloud formation that passed over us (heading north to south) at teatime. Looks awfully like a dissipating plane contrail.... Lovely clear evening so another frost is guaranteed. More the point though, summer has arrived as the first sighting of a solitary house martin this evening, a full two weeks earlier than last year. Mind you, feel sorry for it as there's hardly any insect activity so not much food available - doubt it wants the cursed bag of peanuts that we've got

Looking at the Met Office data (goes back to 1960) , the frostiest April was 1968 for the region. If it hasn't surpassed it, this April must be up there amongst the frostiest.

-2.7'c this morning and a high of 12.2'c this afternoon showing the diurnal temperature range in full effect, thankfully the skies haven't completely clouded-over today which meant getting a good view of AF1 TITAN25 (73-1677) over Stoke-on-Trent as it was heading back stateside.

What a beautiful day wall to wall sunshine and feeling pleasant in the sun winter is a distant memory now hopefully a decent summer on the cards. C.S

Hi All. Occasional poster but regular viewer here. Something that has been puzzling me this week, is why when pressure has been so relatively high across the UK, have we seen such large amount of cloud build up during the day and a fair few showers? If you were simply looking at the pressure charts you would be expecting fairly sunny weather and certainly dry weather. Clearly there must be other factors at play other than just air pressure. Any meteorological explanations or pointing to existing material on the site would be most welcome. Apologies if this post does not belong here, but could not find a good place to post it.

Another what i hope to be sunny day here, yesterday was nice but that wind could really do one. Anyway went a little bit exploring yesterday and came across out-of-the-blue footpaths in the countryside which i only went a small way across them to gets a few pics and stopped off at a White horse for a drink in the middle of nowhere but it had lovely scenery and was quiet.

Not much sign of a thaw as we move into spring

Lovely last night, the crescent moon was visible the previous night as well in the fading twilight

We're running at 4.7C (-3.4C) to the 14th. Its going to be the coldest first half of April here since 1986. That had a mean of 4.3C for the first half.

GFS 06Zat T+192 is -- dare I say it -- nae bad: